D O C U M E N T 3 2 0 D E C E M B E R 1 9 2 1 1 9 7
320. From Ludwik Silberstein
Rochester, N.Y., 129 Seneca Parkway, 11 December 1921
Dear Colleague,
If with this address I imitate your own
letter,[1]
purely for the sake of the sacred
principle of equality or camaraderie, my mind still does conjure up a “most
esteemed Master,” all the same.
Your letter of the 4th of Oct. sincerely moved me. I and undoubtedly many oth-
ers were very sorry that—albeit for certainly very human and extremely attractive
reasons—you could not resolve to resettle in America and work and teach here. I
conveyed the pert[inent] part of your letter verbatim (in the German language) to
the dean, Dr.
Gale,[2]
completely confidentially; and if I just reply to your letter six
weeks after its receipt, this is only because I received Gale’s answer only two days
ago—from which I can merely conclude that your (copied) words reached him and,
despite the sad result for all of us, liked them very
much.[3]
That I very well under-
stand, indeed, more so, that I thoroughly sympathize with your reasons of attach-
ment, scarcely needs mentioning, considering that I myself am perhaps made up of
three quarters sentimentality and just one quarter reason (intellect).
I shall hope nevertheless that the Atlantic abyss will not keep us forever apart
and that we (you have many true admirers here) shall have the good fortune of see-
ing you here. In the interim, may I hope that you will permit me to continue our
communication from time to time in the form of letters?
Many thanks for your note about the
aberration.[4]
Although it still leaves me in
the dark, I shall not trouble you about it anymore now; perhaps a future opportunity
will present itself for it.
Since last writing to you about the terrestrial optical experiment, I received three
more messages from Michelson in Pasadena (California) and two others from Chi-
cago, about which I would like to report to you
briefly:[5]
—In Pasadena, Michel-
son, always using an equilateral (light-path) triangle, gradually reached a light path
(L in Engl. feet) 1,000, 2,000, and finally 4,300, despite working outdoors, without
employing the initially planned calibrated pipes. And in each case the interference
image was still so clear that he could distinguish fringe-width (Fransen
Breite?). When he informed me about L = 4,300, however (it was already Septem-
ber), he closed his letter with the words: under these favorable conditions I shall be
able to drive L next summer in Pasadena up to about L = 7,000 and proceed directly
with the measurement, so we must probably wait until about July or August 1922.
Then he wrote me from Chicago (to where he had to return) that at the Ryerson
Laboratory he had experimentally tested the control arrangement originally
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