DOCS.
471,
472 FEBRUARY-MARCH
1918
487
471. To
Karl Camillo
Schneider
[Berlin,]
24 February 1918
Esteemed
Sir,[1]
You
gave
me
great
pleasure by sending
me
some
of
your
little
tracts.
I
admire
the
versatility
of
your
interests
and
knowledge,
as
well
as
your
fine
and
amusing
style.
I
have read almost all of
it.[2]
The
“Academy”
with
my
Mr.
Double amused
me especially as well;
this
character
is somewhat
less
precise
in
his statements
than the
original,[3]
but
for it
considerably
more
comical and
palatable.
Only
your
strong-arm attitude,
sailing
under
the
Germanic
flag,[4]
goes
very
much
against
the
grain
for
me.
I
prefer
to
hold with
my
countryman
Jesus
Christ,
whom
you
and
your
mind-mates consider
irretrievably
obsolete.
Suffering really
is
more
preferable
to
me
than
exerting
force.
History may
instruct
us
where
this
mentality,
which
you
and
so
many contemporaries
in this
country extol,
is
going
to
lead
us;
who
can
know?
But
moving beyond
all
designs:
De
gustibus non
est
disputandum; my
taste
is
otherwise.
Very respectfully,
A.
Einstein.
472. From Hermann
Weyl
Zurich,
20
Schmelzberg St.,
1
March
1918
Highly
esteemed
Colleague,
On
my
instruction,
the
printer is
sending
you
the
printer’s proofs
of
my
book
Space,
Time,
Matter.[1]
Besso had
prompted
me
to
publish
this
lecture held in
the
previous
semester.[2] I
hope
the
book
proves
suitable for
contributing
to
the
dissemination of
the
great
ideas
you
have introduced into
physics!-The
proofs
are
intended for
your use,
of
course;
I
thought
it
might
interest
you
to note
now
already
one or
two
of
the
things
it contains.-
Lately
I
succeeded,
I
believe,
in
deriving electricity
and
gravitation
from
a
single
common source.[3]
A
completely
determinate
action
principle
results
which,
in
the
electricity-free case,
leads to
your
gravitation
equations;
in the
gravitation-free one,
on
the other
hand,
it
yields
equations
that
agree
in
first
approximation
with
Maxwell’s.
In
the
most
general
case,
the
eqs.
do
become
4th
order,
though.[4] May
I send
you
the
manuscript
(about
10
pages)
when
I
have
completed it,
so
that
you
can
perhaps
submit
it to
the
Berlin
Academy?
At
the
end
of
March
I
am coming
to Berlin and would be
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