D O C U M E N T 8 J A N U A R Y 1 9 2 1 1 1
fellow again. If the engineers want to wait so long, I am ready to relieve you of your
sermon, if you
like.[5]
Regarding the electron problem, I am pessimistic. A really new idea is needed
that isn’t forthcoming. I don’t believe in the correctness of Herzfeld’s
idea.[6]
Con-
sider two identical little rods hung up coaxially at a distance of 1 m and constantly
magnetized in opposite directions and the magnetism is concurrently reversed. In
this case the hypothetical wave processes are practically completely eliminated at
a great distance. But nobody will believe that the angular momentum acting on one
rod is substantially influenced by the magnetic reversal of the second.
I have an experimentum crucis for whether or not the electromagnetic undula-
tory field is really present in thermal electromagnetic radiation in the distribution
demanded by Maxwell’s theory. I am immensely curious about the outcome. Quite
frankly speaking, I myself do not know what to expect. The dichotomy energy
quanta/undulatory field relentlessly still stands.
Rümelin’s death affects me very much; I was also really close to taking an early
leave this
way.[7]
Good luck for the New Year and best wishes. Yours,
Einstein.
7. From Edouard Guillaume[1]
Bern, 4 January 1921
[Not selected for translation.]
8. To Jewish Community of Berlin
[Berlin,] 5 January 1921
Nobody can be forced to join a religious
community.[1]
Those times are, thank
God, gone, once and for all. I hereby declare again definitively that I do not intend
to join the religious community & that I do not deem it necessary to , rather
remaining unaffiliated to any faith, as I have done up to
now.[2]
In your letter I notice that the word Jew is ambiguous in that it refers (1) to
nationality and origin, (2) to the faith. I am a Jew in the 1st sense, not in the second.
Thus the answer to the contentions contained in your letter automatically follows.
With gr[eat] respect.