1 7 6 D O C U M E N T 2 7 8 O C T O B E R 1 9 2 1
Following these business communications, some more private ones. My health
has not been particularly good this vacation; I got a catarrh and still haven’t got rid
of it completely, even though I was in Ehrwald in the Tyrol for 3 weeks. Catarrh
isn’t serious, of course, but I always had asthma at the same time and that takes it
out of you. For months I haven’t had a night entirely without asthmatic discomfort.
But now it’s much better again and I hope to be completely free of it in a few weeks.
It’s also high time, because soon the semester is starting and then there are quite
major goings on here. W. Pauli is now my assistant; he is astonishingly smart and
can do a
lot.[5]
He is human at the same time, entirely normal, funny, and childish,
matching his 21 years. Unfortunately he wants to leave this summer to join Lenz in
Hamburg, as he had promised
him.[6]
Brody is also still here with me. He is very
clever and
inspiring.[7]
One really ought to procure him a position that he could live
on; I can only just support him (from a fund raised by Franck,
Courant,[8]
and me).
Polányi wanted to talk to you about
this.[9]
I have nothing special to report to you
about science. A major piece by me about the thermodynamics of crystals is now
in
press,[10]
but already now I would rather leave it unprinted because the founda-
tions of the matter appear wobbly to me. The result (which I incidentally consider
right, despite the wobbly foundations) is remarkable: Grüneisen’s law of the pro-
portionality between energy and thermal expansion does not apply at low temper-
atures; instead of the -law, the latter satisfies a -law. This ought to be tested
experimentally (Nernst?). Then I have a paper in press about lattice potentials,
which is quite nice
mathematically.[11]
With Pauli I’m attacking the quantum cal-
culations for
atoms[12]
by the method of approximation that Brody and I recently
developed in the Zeitschr[ift] f[ür] Phys[ik] taking the oscillator system as an
example.[13]
Maybe something will come of it. Otherwise, I think about all sorts of
other things, but mostly without any success. Quanta are a hopeless mess.
My wife and the children are
well;[14]
Göttingen agrees with them exceptionally
well. Even my little son is thriving splendidly.
The political situation depresses me very much again. Despite all the best of
intentions to stay objective, my resentment against the Entente people is growing
because they are so disgustingly hypocritical. Although the Germans also stole and
robbed when they could, they did not gab about the “salvation of civilization” and
the
like.[15]
But I cannot write about all this without getting upset—so let’s better
drop it.
Is it true that the Mount Wilson people have now confirmed the redshift? Has it
already been published, and
where?[16]
I received (as editor of the Phys[ikalischen]
Z[eit]schr[ift]) a letter from Mr. +++
Glaser[17]
with the request to accept the
attached manuscript. Debye also recommended it be
accepted.[18]
I read it and
found that it is a vulgar attack on Grebe and Bachem in which you are also being
T4 T2