DOCUMENT 364 FEBRUARY 1912 419 ben y-Absorptionsaktes in beide Schachteln.[11] Leider habe ich jetzt die Zeit zur genaueren Überlegung der Versuche nicht auftreiben können. In Brüssel ist zwar nichts herausgekommen, aber es war ein überaus hübsches Spekta- kel.[12] Gegen die Theorie der Schwankungen hat niemand was vorbringen können. Planck wehrte sich zwar, wurde aber sehr in die Enge getrieben.[13] Sie werden dies selbst konstatieren können. Verstehen aber thue ich die Sache ebenso schlecht als damals. Die Quanten thun zwar das, was ihnen zukommt, aber sie existieren nicht so wie der ruhende Lichtäther. Letzterer dreht sich gegenwärtig fleissig im Grabe herum, in der Absicht, wieder lebendig zu wer- den-der Arme. Ich danke Ihnen noch herzlich für die meiner Jugend[14] spendierten Weih- nachtsgeschenke, bitte Sie aber, von nun an nichts mehr zu schicken. Das freundliche Andenken an Sie bei jung & als wird auch ohne solches wach bleiben. Viele Grüsse an Sie und Meyer, aber nicht an den rasenden Fortissi- mo[15] von Ihrem Einstein. ALSX. [13 282]. [1]Dated by the reference to the preceding document. [2]The preceding document. [3]Einstein arrived at this derivation in the course of refuting an assertion of Emil Warburg's (see Doc. 308). It was published as Einstein 1912b (Vol. 4, Doc. 2), which was received 18 January 1912 by the Annalen der Physik. See also Vol. 4, the editorial note, "Einstein on the Law of Photochemical Equivalence." [4]See Einstein 1912c (Vol. 4, Doc. 3), which was received 26 February 1912 by the An- nalen der Physik. See Vol. 4, the editorial note, "Einstein on Gravitation and Relativity: The Static Field," for a discussion. [5]See Doc. 343, note 3, for more on the controversy with Abraham. [6]After Einstein had criticized an earlier proof by Walther Nernst of the latter's "heat the- orem" (later known as the third law of thermodynamics) at the Solvay Congress (see Nernst et al. 1914, p. 243 [Vol. 3, Doc. 25, sec. 5] or Nernst et al. 1912, p. 302), Nernst devised a new proof which was submitted to the Prussian Academy on 1 February and published as Nernst 1912b. Like the first proof, it used thermodynamics and was based on the empirically estab- lished fact that the specific heat of solids vanishes as the temperature goes to zero. A response was submitted by Einstein to Physikalische Zeitschrift (see Doc. 366), but it was never pub- lished, perhaps because he felt that he had settled the issue with Nernst during a visit to Berlin (see Docs. 384 and 398). The controversy flared up again at the second Solvay Congress in late October 1913, in the discussion following a paper by Eduard Grüneisen (see Grüneisen et al. 1921). In 1914 Einstein flatly stated that all attempts to derive Nernst's theorem from thermo- dynamics were bound to fail (see Einstein 1914j, p. 820). [7]A paper on this subject was submitted but later withdrawn (see Doc. 343). See also Doc. 313, note 7, for more details. [8]See Doc. 308 for more on this hypothesis and an earlier critical remark by Einstein. See also Doc. 329 for Haber's own summary of his work. [9]Johannes Stark, whose irrational behavior is commented on in the preceding document. [10]Edgar Meyer. [11]Meyer had found correlations between the ionization events produced by an external source of y-rays in two adjacent ionization chambers. See Doc. 256 for more details and for Einstein's earlier comments on Meyer's results.
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