D O C U M E N T 1 4 7 J U N E 1 9 2 1 1 8 9
[1]This letter was sent later, together with Doc. 158.
[2]See Doc. 141.
[3]The planned Hebrew University.
[4]For the contemporary discussion on these issues among the planners of the Hebrew University,
see Kolatt 2000 and Lavsky 2000. For a reference to the possibility of Einstein taking up a position as
lecturer at the university, see Paul Epstein to Einstein, 11 September 1919 (Vol. 9, Doc. 102).
[5]Einstein had made a sarcastic remark contrasting the cleverness and the courage of his fellow
Jews (see Doc. 141).
[6]Elia G. S. Michelstädter (1880–?) and his cousin Emilio Michelstädter (1892–1933) were both
born in Gorizia in northeastern Italy.
[7]Maurice Solovine.
[8]The Swiss Patent Office moved from the old postal office on the Outer Bollwerk, where Einstein
had last worked, to an office barrack established during World War I in the Spitalacker district in Bern.
Einstein and Besso had worked together at the patent office from 1904 to 1908.
[9]The rate of exchange was 11 German marks to 1 Swiss franc (see Vossische Zeitung, 10 June
1921).
[10]Most likely a reference to Michele Besso to Einstein, 24/27 December 1920 (Vol. 10,
Doc. 244).
[11]See notes 5 and 6 in Doc. 141.
[12]For mounting evidence that the measurements of Einstein and De Haas on the gyromagnetic
effect were off by a factor of 2, see Wander de Haas to Einstein, December 1920 (Vol. 10, Doc. 215,
esp. note 1).
147. From Arthur S. Eddington
[London/Cambridge,] 1921 June 12
Dear Professor Einstein
Here is the paper we were speaking about on Friday
night.[1]
Later on I shall be interested to hear whether it fulfils the favourable expecta-
tions you formed in our conversation about it. But I am sure you will be kept very
busy during your short stay in England; so do not trouble about it until you are more
at leisure.
You will I think be interested in the conclusion I come to in §12—that this work
is an extension, but is not in the slightest degree an emendation, of yours and that
ds is actually comparable at a distance (i.e.
integrable)[2]
Yours sincerely
A. S. Eddington
ALS. [9 277].
[1]Eddington 1921. This paper presents a generalization of Hermann Weyl’s unified field theory.
Einstein himself had been working on his own modification of Weyl’s theory discussed, e.g., in
Doc. 58.
On Friday Einstein had participated in the monthly meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society,
where he was greeted by its new president, Eddington.
[2]Eddington claimed that his version of Weyl’s theory removed the dependence of metric intervals
ds on the past history of objects in spacetime, a feature of Weyl’s theory that was objectionable to
Einstein (see Einstein 1921e, Vol. 7, Doc. 54).
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