1 9 4 D O C U M E N T 3 0 9 D E C E M B E R 1 9 2 1
We had lots of fun with Lenard’s article about
Soldner.[17]
I don’t know if you
saw the report about it in the Frankfurter
Zeitung[18]
and the rebuttals by von Laue,
on the one hand, and by Hilbert and me on the
other.[19]
I’m in the process of reading Laue’s 2nd
volume;[20]
I find it really quite nice.
Nevertheless, Pauli’s encyclopedia
article[21]
is a bigger accomplishment.
My wife is feeling quite well; she is nursing the
baby[22]
and it agrees with both
of them. At the moment she’s in bed, though, with a painful, huge boil. The two
girls[23]
are also well.
Greetings to your wife and the young ladies, also to all our Berlin friends and
acquaintances.
With best regards, yours,
M. Born.
309. To Max Schuler
[Berlin,] 1 December 1921
Dear Dr. Schuler,
It is very nice of you to want to resume the magnetic
trials.[1]
I am of the opinion
that instead of a massive cylinder, one should use a short-circuited wire coil, the
windings of which are very lightly (e.g., through an oxide layer) isolated from one
another. I would prefer to indicate the field by a suspended magnet rather than by
induction; because it ought to be very difficult to define the beginning and ending
position of an induction coil so precisely that the geomagnetic field doesn’t become
fatal. The use of an amplifier tube only seems promising for alternating fields, but
not in our case, where it is more a matter of avoiding disturbances than obtaining
great sensitivity.
I see that you want to push the cylinder inside the fixed induction coil. This, too,
I consider questionable, if the cylinder is massive. Because the rotation of a massive
cylinder in the Earth’s field induces currents that themselves (as a result of small
asymmetries) are induced in the coil.
But ultimately do what you yourself think best. There is, in the end, the possi-
bility of applying the induction method in connection with a segmented cylinder. I
myself consider the magnetostatic method more sensitive and simpler.
I am quite curious about what you will find. Although I still cannot form a clear
picture that would permit expecting a positive effect, it is for me the only reason-