DOC.
283
DECEMBER
1916 271
-I
have not
thanked
you yet
for
your
latest
paper
on
gravitation
sent
re-
cently.[6]
Now I
have received
3 copies
of
it,
all
told,
one
of which
I
gave
to
Weyl
and
one
to Dällenbach.[7] I
must
say
for
myself
that
I
had
not
come as
far
as
to
perceive
the
gap
in
the
system
that
is
being
filled
by it; by
contrast,
Weyl obviously seems
to
have felt
it, since
the
paper
that
he has
transmitted
to
you[8]
also deals
in
part with
the
relation between
gravitation equations
and
the
conservation
laws.-In this
paper
by Weyl,
it
is demonstrated,
as
he told
me,
that the
“finite circumference
of
a
mass-point” (which
I
define for
myself
such
that
when
the
space
is
represented
in
a
Euclidean
manner-for
masses
at
rest,
this
is
meaningful
also in the
third dimension-the
representations
of
the
measuring
rods
are
variable,
that
is,
they
become
so
small for
the
mass-point
that the
measurement
figure approaches
a
finite
limit)
vanishes
through
electrical
charging
of
the
mass-point (that
is,
through
a
very
low
charge,
E/u,
approx.
1/20000
of
this ratio
for
an electron).
Is
this connected to
the
fact
that the
negative
gravitational
energy
of
the
mass
point’s
field
is counterbalanced
by
the
electrical
field
energy (at
this
low
charge already)?
You
are
going
to
say:
Lazybones, figure
it
out for
yourself!
But
my thinking
machine has become
so
resinous, ought
to
think
out several
things-and
therefore refuses
this
enterprise, quite
as a
matter
of
principle.
But this
does
not
prevent
me
from
telling
others
about what
I
do
not
know
myself.
Thus
I
want to
offer
an
aperçu
in
the
phys. colloquium on
earlier
attempts
to
explain perihelion motion,[9]
likewise
on
the
papers by
Wiechert[10]
and
Flamm.[11]
Regarding
those
explanation
attempts, I
have found
interesting
material
by
Zenneck
on
gravitation
in
the
Enzyclop.
der mathem.
Wiss.[12]
I
have
also
thought
about
Gerber’s
idea:[13]
It
can
be
presented
in
a way
that
makes
it
appear entirely
reasonable:
The
potential
applicable
to
the
moving
point
has
a
value
corresponding
to
its
location at
a
time
sufficient
for
an
effect
to be able
first to reach
the
Sun and
to return
from it
to
the
planet
in
that
interval.[14] Why
Gerber
identified
this
effect
specifically
with
the
potential
and
not
with
the
force,
for
inst.,
or
with
an
arbitrary
function
of
the
potential,
is naturally not
clear.
It
is
not
more
unreasonable,
though,
than
many
other
attempts to
straighten
out
novel issues. On
the other
hand,
it
appears
to
me (see
lazybones
remark
above!)
that
although
the
correct
value should
come
out
for
Gerber,
the
opposite
sign
for
the
perihelion
motion would have to
result-at
least
if,
as
a rough
comparison
of
the
results
suggests
to
me,
with
a
potential of
the
form
k/r
(1
+ adr/at+b
[dr/dt]2),
the result
turns
out
proportional to
the
third
term’s
coefficient.
For
the
Flamm
paper also,
I
have
to
consider
nothing
but
things
I
know
nothing
about.
For
an
unalterable
mass
configuration,
a
practical
elimination
of
space
and
time
occurs
again.
Does
light
describe
the
straightest
lines in
the
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