590 DOC.
564
JUNE
1918
“Although
I have
submitted the
paper,
the
development
of
the
asymmetry
of
Tuv is
not clear to
me yet.
I
think it
is connected
to
the fact that the substance
in
the
world
occurs
in
a
threadlike
manner (world
lines).[14]
When I have clarified
this
problem
for
myself,
I shall write
a
postdoctoral
thesis
[Habilitationsschrift][15]
and intend
to
habilitate
at
the
Poly[technic]
next
fall
on
“phys.
math. foundations
of electrical
engineering.”
I
am
doing
statistics
together
with
Weyl
&
Besso.[16]
We
are reading your
papers
&
the
ones
by Smoluchowsky
on
Brownian
motion.[17]
This
I
would
like
to continue
until the
spring
of
1919
at
the latest
and
then
do
practical
work,
if
possible
in France.
I
think
that
I
am
best suited
for
a
lectureship
that
combines
technology
with
science.
Despite your objection,
I cannot shake
off
the
great
impression
that
Weyl’s
new
theory
has made
on
me.[18]
What
is
certain
is that,
if it
is
accepted,
all
relations
to observable fact
are
lost.
Physics
is then,
no more
than
geometry,
in
an
absolute
world of its
own
which
only
Almighty
God
can
operate.
From
there,
some principle
must exist in
my
consciousness
that
wanders
along
a
world
line,
for inst.,
linking
together
the
various
space-time points
of
my experience.
Or
I
must
replace
the
present
externally,
dogmatically imposed
coordinate
arrange-
ment of
space-time points
with
something
else
that
is
firmly
assumed
as
invariant
against
my
stream of
consciousness. You choose
for
this
such
complex things
as
“rigid
body"
or
"clock."[19]
This
seems
to
me
to be
arbitrary. Perhaps
much
more
profoundly
based entities exist
than
these
particular
rigid
bodies
or clocks,[20]
which
we
must
pronounce
over
&
over
again
as
the
same.
For
example,
a
unit
for
the
quantum
of
action:
Hence,
although Weyl’s
theory
is,
for
the
time
being,
incapable
of
explaining
the
constancy
of
the
chemical elements’
spectral lines,[21]
it
does
provide room
for
a
new
theory
that
would be in
a
position
to
do
so,
creates
the
purest
foundation
for
it,
and in this
way
does become
the
necessary
transition
point
for
a
theory
of
matter, of
the
relation between
the
discrete &
the
contin-
uous.
But
first
we
must wait until
Weyl
has found
the
electron. He has found
the
energy-momentum
tensor. His Laue scalar
is
supposedly always
strictly
zero.
This,
as
he
told
us
yesterday,
is
what
he
is
working
on
at
the
moment.
He
has also
found
the
Newtonian
gravitation
eq. as a
first
approximation
of his
fourth-order
equa[tion].[22]
The skill he has
in
calculation is
quite
tremendous.
Mr. Besso has been
telling me
all
the
time how
unsteady
your
health
is.[23]
I
am
very sorry
about that.
Also,
I
absolutely
do
not like
your
not
coming
to
Switzerland. I
would have been
so
pleased
to
see you again.
But
it could be
that
the
long
trip
would have
hurt
you
and
that
you
can
convalesce
just
as
well
during
a
longer
stay
by
the
sea as
in
the
mountains.[24]
At
any
rate, I
wish
you
return
to
health
as soon as ever
possible.