D O C U M E N T 1 9 4 F E B R U A R Y 1 9 2 6 3 3 9 ADftS. [28 041]. An English translation was published in Nature 117, No. 2938 (20 February 1926): 278. Another version of the first paragraph was published as an AD (see Einstein 1929a, p. [6]). A version of the complete text, which seems to have been translated back into German from English, was published in Vossische Zeitung, 14 February 1926. [1]Dated according to fact that Einstein’s letter was read to the audience at the Royal Astronomical Society’s annual general meeting on 12 February 1926 (see Nature 117, No. 2938 [20 February 1926]: 278). [2]The RAS first awarded its gold medal in 1824, jointly to Charles Babbage and Johann Franz Encke. Einstein was awarded the medal by the society’s council for “his researches on relativity and the theory of gravitation.” He had been proposed by Arthur S. Eddington and Herbert H. Turner (see Dreyer and Turner 1923, p. 43, and McCrea 1979, p. 259). There had been three previous attempts to award the medal to Einstein. On 14 November 1919, Herbert H. Turner and James H. Jeans proposed Einstein for the award, just five days following the joint Royal Society-RAS meeting at which the results of the eclipse expeditions had been announced. On 12 December, the RAS selected Einstein as the recipient of the award. However, on 9 January 1920, with rising opposition to the award being bestowed upon a German, the RAS council meeting failed to confirm the decision by the required two-thirds majority, and the medal was not awarded. This led to a public outcry in both England and Germany. Eddington nominated Einstein in 1920, but there was little support for his proposal. In 1923, Harold Jeffreys and Andrew C. D. Crommelin pro- posed Einstein for the medal (see Vol. 9, Introduction, p. li McCrea 1979, pp. 257–258 Stanley 2003, p. 87). [3]The medal was entrusted to the RAS’s foreign secretary, Herbert H. Turner, for transmission to Einstein. James H. Jeans, the society’s president, remarked that with the medal went “the most cordial wish of the whole Society that the future may bring with it health, vigour and further scientific tri- umphs of the kind that have already made him one of the outstanding figures of modern science and I think we may anticipate the verdict of posterity and add, one of the outstanding figures also in the history of human thought” (see Nature 117, No. 2938 [20 February 1926]: 278). 194. To Paul Ehrenfest [Berlin,] 12. II. 26. Lieber Ehrenfest! Zuerst scheint es mir, dass in erster Linie Holst zu wählen ist.[1] Seine Verdienste um die Physik in Holland sind einzigartig, und er hat im ausserpersönlichen Inter- esse sozusagen seine wissenschaftliche Persönlichkeit geopfert. Er hat das Anrecht auf jegliches Aequivalent, über das die andern verfügen. Wenn noch einer zu wählen ist, würde ich nicht Ornstein[2] wählen, weil man nicht nur das persönliche Verdienst sondern auch das Interesse der Akademie im Auge haben muss Du weisst dass ich sehr grossen Wert auf das Moralische lege. Man soll nicht den Einfluss eines Mannes vergrössern, der sich zu leicht von selbstischen Motiven leiten lässt. Bezüglich Coster und Cramers[3] teile ich Deine Meinung. Sie sind wissenschaftlich mehr als Fokker[4] (nach meiner Ansicht), wenn ich auch bei Tetrode[5] schwanke. Zernike[6] ist tüchtig, hat aber eigentlich soviel ich weiss, nie einen recht selbständigen Gedanken gehabt. Grosse mensch- liche Qualitäten sind mir an ihm auch nicht aufgefallen. Ihn würde ich also bestimmt nicht wählen.
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