2 6 8 D O C U M E N T 1 4 4 S E P T E M B E R 1 9 2 0
Sending you my most cordial regards, yours,
F. Ehrenhaft
[Enclosures][8]
1 Carbon-copy letter
1 Arb. Zeitung
1 offprint.
Paul Weyland’s letter dated 23 July 1920:
“Esteemed Professor,
Now that unanimous agreement has been reached among serious members of the exact sciences
about rejecting Einstein’s research, we are planning also to present the educated lay public with
counter-arguments, after it has long enough been fed to the point of vomiting with Einstein’s ideas.
As secretary of the Einstein opponents, I inquire of you whether you are willing to participate in
these lectures against Einstein and, on this condition, could provide you with more details upon re-
ceipt of your acceptance.
For reasons of urgency I ask you kindly to reply by wire. The business ought to yield a profit of
about 10–15,000 marks for you.
In great respect, yours very truly, Weyland.”
144. From Hendrik A. Lorentz
Haarlem, 76 Zijlweg, 10 September 1920
Dear Colleague,
Just today I happened to hear that, in the matter of your appointment by the Ley-
den University Council, all is now in
order[1]
and that you will deliver your inau-
gural speech at the end of October. I am very pleased about this and must tell you
now again that I very much regretted your having to wait so long.
Have you read yet that now it is already possible to make money with relativity
theory?[2]
I enclose herewith what I read about this in a Dutch newspaper. It will
interest you in any case.
You should really get the 5,000 dollars, and the Sc[ientific] A[merican] would
have done better to ask you for an article and offer that sum as an honorarium. Now
I wish that you had a short article ready and we were sure that the decision makers
were reasonable enough to choose it. Then you would perhaps decide to descend
into the arena yourself; it is not your fault that scientific achievements, such as
those the world has to thank you for, do not free one from all financial worry. I
could easily arrange for a translation into English here if that were to pose a prob-
lem in Berlin.
With cordial greetings, yours faithfully,
H. A. Lorentz.