644
DOCS.
619,
620
SEPTEMBER
1918
Hilbert
was
here for
a
few weeks
and
declared
his
unqualified
support; I
re-
ceived
a
very approbative
letter
from Sommerfeld
as
well.[18]
He
wrote also
that
new,
extremely
careful
measurements
on
Mt. Wilson did not
yield any
trace of
astral
redshift;
what
is
the
story there?[19]
At
the
moment
I
am recovering
at
Engadin; my
state of
health
forced
me
to
retract
my acceptance
of
the
call to
Breslau.[20]
If
only we
had
you
here
now
in
Zurich
again!
You
can
imagine
how
happy
I
would be
about that. But
if
it
is
not
to be
permanent,
then
I
hope
at least
that
you
will
be
coming
to
us
in
the
near
future,
for at least
a
few
weeks.[21]
With
best
regards, yours,
Herm.
Weyl.
620. From Friedrich Adler
Stein-on-the-Danube, 20 September 1918
Dear
Friend,
Finally
(on
14
Sept.)
I
received
your long
letter[1]
after the short letter and
the
postcard
had
already
arrived beforehand.
I
thank
you
heartily
for
all
the
effort
you
took,
but
to be
honest,
I
am
quite
disappointed
about
your
criticism.
For
you
did
not
get
to
what
seems
to
me
to be
the
main issue. All
your
comments
on
chapter
II
are
misunderstandings
that
arose
from the fact
that
you
made
the
comments before
reading
§24-35.[2]
In
my view, only
the
criticism to
the
1st
sec-
tion of
chapter
III
is
legitimate,
which
I
had meanwhile
already
become
aware
of
on
developing
a
4th
chapter,
and which I
am
now busy changing.
The
state-
ment
on
the
observational bases
that
you
miss
is
in
the
foreword,
which I did not
think
necessary
to
send
along
to
you.
There it
says
that
for all
considerations,
the
validity
of
the Michelson
&
Fizeau
experiment
is
presumed,
it
thus
simply
involves
a
choice between Lorentz
and
Einstein.
My
interpretation
of these
ex-
periments,
incidentally,
becomes
clearly
evident in
§34-35
as
well.[3]
For
me
it
is
not
a
matter of
constructing
a new
theory,
rather
just
showing
what
possibilities
the
observational foundations
of Michelson
and
Fizeau leave
open.
There
are oo
many
transformations
that
conform with this
basis.[4]
x'
=
lß(x
-
vt) y'
=
ly
z'
=
lz
t'
=
lß[t-
v/c2)
ß
=
You want to
prove
that
l
can
only
be
1,
but
or
l
=
7
where
7
=
l-%
\
i-S
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