D O C U M E N T 3 4 5 D E C E M B E R 1 9 2 1 2 1 1
In closing I would still like to inform you that, lately, I conducted physico-cos-
mological research, which I hope will not be entirely uninteresting to you. It relates
to thoughts I had also mentioned to you in my letters in
1917[3]
and which have
been occupying me more intensely since then. I do not yet know at the moment
when and where my work will appear, because it is a quite voluminous treatise.
In wishing you, Professor, a happy New Year, I am most respectfully yours,
Dr. Franz Selety.
345. To Hedwig and Max Born
[Berlin,] 30 December 1921
Dear Borns,
Today, cordial New Years greetings! The photograph of the littlest Born heartily
delighted all of
us.[1]
No one thinks about the Amazon clash
anymore.[2]
The news
that you, d[ear] Born, had to go through so much with your health dismays
me.[3]
I hope all of you are fit and healthy again by now. Pauli is a fine fellow, for all his
21 years of age; he can be proud of his article in the
encyclopedia.[4]
Polányi’s ideas
make me shudder somewhat. But he has discovered difficulties for which I still
know of no reasonable cure. Particularly, a numerical consideration on the radia-
tion-molecule equilibrium is a splitting headache for
me.[5]
There is surely much
truth to Polányi’s ideas about the rigidity of
crystals;[6]
just the extension to gases
seems aberrant to me. Your investigation of electron streams seems
interesting.[7]
Your rebuttal regarding Soldner in the Frankfurter Zeitung appealed to me very
much.[8]
Now, thanks to the excellent collaboration of Geiger and Bothe, the exper-
iment on light emission is
finished.[9]
Result: The emission of light by the moving
canal-ray particle is strictly monochromatic, whereas according to the undulatory
theory, the color of the elementary emission ought to be different in different direc-
tions. Thus it is surely proven that the undulatory field has no real existence and
that Bohrian emission is an instantaneous process in the real
sense.[10]
It is my most
powerful scientific experience in years. Ehrenfest writes enthusiastically about
Bohr’s atomic theory; he is visiting
him.[11]
When Ehrenfest is convinced, then
there is something to it; as he’s a skeptical fellow.
Greetings to the little ones and, to both of
you,[12]
good luck for the New Year,
cordially yours,
A. Einstein.