D O C U M E N T 1 5 6 J A N U A R Y 1 9 2 6 1 7 3 sorbed by friction the wave-length of the meander-formation will therefore in- crease with the cross-section of the river. Translators’ note: Based on a translation by Sonja Bargmann, Ideas and Opinions (New York: Crown Publishers, 1982), 249-243. 155. Calculations [Berlin, on or before 7 January 1926] [Not selected for translation.] 156. From Emmy Noether[1] Blaricum (North Holland), Villa Cornelia (until 10 January 1926), 7 January 1926 Dear Professor, The Zaycoff paper, which unfortunately is absolutely unsuitable for the Math. Annalen, is simultaneously being returned to your office as a business document.[2] First of all, it involves a not particularly transparent rendition of the main theo- rems of my “Invariant Variation Problems” (Gött[inger] Nach[richten] 1918 or 19),[3] with one slight addition—invariance of the integral up to the divergence term—which is already to be found with Bessel-Hagen (Math. Ann. around 1922)[4] in his paper on the conservation laws of electrodynamics following the above note. This paper by Bessel-Hagen is reviewed in §2 (his reference to me here is erro- neous) then the obvious integration of the conservation laws is executed, which is missing with Bessel-Hagen. In the next paragraphs the field equations with their functional dependences are set up by the variation method in the case of general relativity, first with a vanishing electric vector, then without this specialization, and finally in Weyl’s case, or even more generally because these are only calculations and not a word is said by way of explanation (except in the introduction), this is difficult to discern. The systematic approach as a whole compared to the earlier ones—above all compared to Klein’s—rests upon the formulas being calculated for an unspecified action function W, and the value for W being entered only into the finished formu- las. It is impossible for anyone not familiar with the theory to understand what the purpose of the calculations is.