1 3 0 D O C U M E N T 1 8 8 J U L Y 1 9 2 1
work he will send the light around inside pipes (sewer pipes, 8,000 feet long).—I
shall inform you immediately about all his
results.[8]
With most cordial regards, yours sincerely,
Ludwik Silberstein.
188. From Jacques Loeb
Woods Hole, Mass., Marine Laboratory, 20 July 1921
My dear Professor Einstein;
We have been here since 6 weeks, where it is cool, and thus escaped the insuf-
ferable heat in New York. The summer this year is surely the most unbearable in
many years.
My efforts to obtain support for Warburg, Michaelis, Meyerhof, and Höber in
Kiel and a few other competent young biologists from the Rockefeller Institute
have
failed.[1]
The answer they gave me was that such an individual selection as I
suggest would only make enemies for the institute. This is weak logic if research is
involved, as any support of incapable and sterile minds for science is worthless. I
almost get the impression that for Germans the defeat raised the sincerity of
researchers, whereas the victory in France and here too has promoted politics at the
expense of science.
I read positive reports about your trip to
England.[2]
The papers here, as usual,
published absurd accounts of your statements, some of which have been retracted,
though, so you do not need to be concerned about
it.[3]
I completed the viscosity measurements and the result is very clear. Your theory
made this area, which had previously been incomprehensible, very simple and
clear, so these viscosity measurements were a quite simple and pleasant task for
me.[4]
Mr. Brandeis is spending his vacation here and I see him occasionally; Prof. F.
Frankfurter also come in from time to
time.[5]
Both speak about you in the nicest
and most admiring way.
I received a letter from Arrhenius in which he told me that he was in Berlin and
that he had seen you and the other physicists
there.[6]
He is enthusiastic about the
prevalent intellectual spirit among these circles.
Considering the critical state in which science finds itself everywhere, it is of the
greatest importance that the energy and verve of German researchers not be crip-
pled. This alone can save us here from the National Research Council—i.e., the
group of politicians controlled by George Hale—suppressing science through orga-
nizational
mania.[7]
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