DOC.
7
MOTIVES FOR RESEARCH 45
WHAT
IS
THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY? 227
ried
on some years
ago
between
Mach
and
Planck.
[10]
The
longing
to
behold
this
pre-established
harmony
is
the
source
of the
inexhaustible
patience
and
perseverance
with
which
Planck
has devoted
himself,
as we see,
to
the
most
general
problems
of
our
science,
refusing to
let himself be
diverted
to
more
grateful
and
more
easily
attained
ends. I have
often
heard
colleagues
try
to
attribute
this
attitude of his
to extra-
ordinary
will-power
and
discipline-wrongly,
in
my
opinion.
The
state
of
mind
which enables
a
man
to
do work of this kind
is
akin
to
that
of the
religious worshiper
or
the
lover;
the
daily
effort
comes
from
no
deliberate intention
or program,
but
straight
from
the heart.
There
he
sits,
our
beloved
Planck,
and smiles inside himself
at my
childish
playing-about
with
the
lantern
of
Diogenes.
Our
affection
for him needs
no
thread-
bare
explanation. May
the love of science continue
to
illumine
his
path
in the
future
and lead
him
to
the
solution
of the
most
important problem
in
present-day physics,
which
he has himself
posed
and done
so
much
to
solve.
May
he succeed
in
uniting
quantum theory
with
electrodynamics
and
mechanics
in
a
single
logical system.
WHAT
IS THE THEORY
OF
RELATIVITY?
Written
at
the
request of
The
London
Times. Published
November
28,
1919.
I
gladly
accede
to
the
request
of
your colleague
to
write
something
for
The
Times
on
relativity.
After
the
lamentable
breakdown of the old active
intercourse
between
men
of learn-
ing,
I welcome
this
opportunity
of
expressing my feelings
of
joy
and
gratitude
toward the
astronomers
and
physicists
of
England.
It
is thoroughly
in
keeping
with the
great
and
proud
traditions
of scientific work in
your
country
that eminent
scientists should have
spent
much time and trouble, and
your
scientific
institutions
have
spared
no expense,
to test
the im-
plications
of
a theory
which
was perfected
and
published
dur-
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