2 0 6 C H R O N O L O G Y , 1 9 1 7 – 1 9 1 8
board of trustees; Einstein, chairman of the board of direc-
tors. The responsibilities of the two boards are budgetary for
the former, and strictly scientific for the latter.
Dec 4 Attends meeting of the Organization of the Like-Minded.
Dec 14 “Obituary for Marian von Smoluchowski” (Vol. 6, Doc. 48).
Dec 16–20 Announcement on the founding of the KWIP in local and
national newspapers.
Dec 21 Applications for research grants from the KWI P begin to
arrive from various researchers.
Dec 25 “The Nightmare” (Vol. 6, Doc. 49).
ca. Dec 25 Becomes bedridden for several months with an abdominal
ulcer.
1918
Jan 4 F. Ehrenhaft nominates Einstein for Nobel Prize, referring
to his previous proposal, to the general theory of relativity
developed in the meantime, and to the confirmation of
Ampère’s molecular theory.
Jan 17 E. Warburg nominates Einstein for Nobel Prize, citing work
in quantum theory, relativity theory, and gravitation. Further
proposals are made by W. Wien, M. von Laue, E. Meyer,
and S. Meyer.
Jan 20 A memorandum marked “secret” by Von Berge, chief of
staff, Oberkommando in den Marken, to the police president
of Berlin, informing him that passport applications by well-
known pacifists and radical Social Democrats need prior
approval from the military command. Einstein’s name was
listed ninth on the blacklist of thirty-one drawn up by the
political division of the Berlin police.
Jan 31 Because of Einstein’s illness, M. Planck submits and com-
ments on Einstein’s paper “On Gravitational Waves”
(Vol. 7, Doc. 1) and communicates Freundlich 1918 to the
plenary session of the PAW in his stead.
Feb 5 “Note on E. Schrödinger’s Paper ‘The Energy Components
of the Gravitational Field’” (Vol. 7, Doc. 2).
Mar 3 “Comment on Schrödinger’s Note ‘On a Solution of the
Generally Covariant Gravitational Equations’” (Vol. 7,
Doc. 3).