DOC.
591
JULY
1918 613
591. To
Michele
Besso
Ahrenshoop.
[29
July
1918][1]
Dear
Michele,
It’s
truly
touching
of
you
all
to
have dedicated
so
much time and
care
to
my
old
papers.[2]
But
I
do have to
say
that
a
good
amount has been
superseded,
so
it’s not worth
the
effort.
Particularly
the
opalescence
paper-it
is
burdened
by
the
superfluous
Fourier
expansion.[3]
I
am very pleased
that
Buek
is
finding
a
good guide
in
you.
He is
an
excellent
fellow
but
not
a
practical sort.[4]
The
book
pleased my boy very much;
he wrote
that
to
me
himself.
Thank
you;[5]
I’ll
pay
for
it
when
I
come
to
Switzerland,
which
I
hope
will
be in
the
autumn.
My
mother
is probably
moving
to
my
uncle
(Jacob
Koch)
who
lives
in
Zurich,[6]
which
provides
a
very
welcome accommodation
opportunity
for
me.
It
will
not
cause any difficulties,
since I draw
a very
clear line
of
distinction between her
and
my
boys.
I’m
very happy
about
the
nice
letters
my boys
are
writing
me;
Mileva
is
also
writing amicably.
Your advice
about
my remarriage
is well
intentioned.[7]
I’m not
going
to follow
it, though.
Because if
I
ever were
to decide to leave
a
second
wife
as
well,
I wouldn’t
allow
myself
to
be held down
by anything.
I
would
submit
to
any
financial burdens
that
would arise
out of it,
as
would be decent.
For
I count
on
her
emerging
from
the
war
properly
fleeced.[8]
Besides,
she
is
very
good,
so
I
really
am
content
with
her. I
would have remained true
to
Mileva
as
well,
if it
had
been bearable with her. In this
regard, you
have
an
entirely
inaccurate
opinion
of
me,
that
I know. I’m
moderate and make
no
exaggerated
demands
of
any
sort
on
those around
me.
But
Mileva
was
absolutely
intolerable
to
me.
When
she’s
not
my
wife,
I
can
like
her
quite
well;
she
is
all
right
to
me
even as
the mother
of
my
boys.
I just
can’t
live
with her. Ever since
she’s
been
away
I feel
incomparably
better,
probably
she does
as well,
apart
from her
illness,
which
you
have all
probably
quite unjustifiably
related to
the
separation.[9]
Here
I
have been
pondering
for countless hours
about the
quantum
problem
again,
naturally,
without
really
making
any headway.
But
I
no longer
have
doubts
about the
reality
of quanta
in
radiation,
even
though I’m
still
quite
alone in
this
conviction.
That’s
how it
will
remain
as long as no
mathematical
theory
succeeds.
I
do want to
present
these
arguments
clearly
sometime
now,
after
all.
Warm
regards, yours,
Albert.
If
you ever get
hold
of
a
little
book Individualmoral und Staatsmoral
by
Gold-
stein,[10]
then
read it. The conflict
is
described
wonderfully
in it.
In
a
paper
on
the
principle
of
energy
conservation in
the
gener.
theory
of
rel.
it
is revealed
that the total
energy
of
a
system
is
completely
independent
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