226
DOC.
311
NOVEMBER
1911
311. To
Willem Julius
Prague,
22 November
[1911][1]
Highly
esteemed
Colleague:
Thank
you so
much for
your
kind
and
very
interesting letter.[2]
As for
our
venerated
Lorentz, I
heard the
grass grow
where there
was no
grass
at
all.[3]
But
in view
of the
significant
native talent, such
as,
especially,
Debije,[4]
it
is
not
surprising
that
I
must have
appeared
to
myself as
an
intruder,
and
that
I
projected
this
feeling
outwards.
Now I
am
glad
that
my
path
has
been marked
out for
me
in
some way or
other,
even
though
I
am
very sorry
that
I will not
become
part
of
your
circle. But I will not
let
my
personal
bonds
with
you
Dutch
physicists
slacken;
instead,
I will
come
to
Holland
from
time
to
time.
The
news
about
Keesom
well-nigh
frightened me,
because
I have
the
impression
that
Debije
is
much
more
significant
as a
theoretician than
is Keesom.[5]
However,
I do
not
want to
presume
to make
any
judgment
without
closer
study.
I
therefore
ask
that
you
quite
soon
either send
me
Keesom's
papers,
or
else tell
me
where his
various
papers
have
appeared.
I will
then
send
you
the desired evaluation
as soon as
possible.
The
extremely interesting
data
on
spectral
lines
on
which
you
report
are
indeed
strongly
supportive
of
your
theory.[6]
If
the
moderately strong
lines
really
have
a
sharp
core,
and the latter
does
not
show
a
red
shift,
then
my
conception
of the
equivalence
of
acceleration and
gravity
is not correct.
I cannot
understand
why
Adams
does not view
his
observation
concerning
this
matter
as a striking
confirmation of
your theory.
I must
admit
to
you
that
your
remark
regarding
the nonshifted
line
cores
has
shaken
my
confidence in
my
hypothesis.
One
should
now try
to find
out
whether
one
can
confirm
a
connection
between the total
line width and
the red
shift, which,
with
some
trust
in
God,
could be
extrapolated
to the
total
line width
zero.
Let
me
also
repeat
that I
will
consider
my
theory
refuted
if the
cores
of the
moderately
wide lines
are
unshifted
and
sharply
delimited,
or
at
least delimited
in such
a
way
that
one
finds
oneself
forced to
separate
the line
core
from
the other
lines
as
an
independent phenomenon.
By
all
means
we
must
point
out
everything
to
Adams,[7]
because the
questions
are
extremely
important,
and
the
pressure
hypothesis
is
certainly
inadequate,
if
not
totally
worthless.[8]
I
have almost
no
doubts
at
all
about the
correctness
of
your
view, which,
after
all,
does
not
rule
out
my
view,
except
for the lack
of
the
core
shift
about
which
you
informed
me,
With
cordial
greetings
to
you
and
your
wife and children
from
your
Einstein
P.S.
My
refusal
does
not
need
to
be
kept
secret
any
longer.[9]
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