D O C U M E N T 4 2 2 N O V E M B E R 1 9 2 6 4 0 1 as a wife, homemaker, and mother I myself often feel like an involuntary prison warden because I am not in a position to alleviate the burden so that she could fol- low her productive activities freely. She has to fight hard for her working hours, and I admire the energy with which she pulls it off without neglecting her other obligations. That is why I wish very much that she could experience the joy of see- ing her opus stand the test before the public. If it should become a success, her pro- ductivity would be powerfully stimulated, and as it seems to me, that’s worthwhile. After having recently read and seen many of the plays that are being performed now, I must say that none of them has a level higher than Hedi’s. Of course I cannot judge its effectiveness on stage but probably not even a stage director can predict that with certainty. Among the paths to the theater that are accessible to us, none seems to me as promising as the one via your son-in-law,[2] who will surely do you the favor of soon reading and evaluating the manuscript. Altogether, I do have such a great view of your influence among intellectual circles in Berlin that I believe that a work would easily find its way to the stage on a recommendation from you. Hedi will be sending you the new version of the play soon, and if you can accept the responsi- bility, do please roll out all your cannons to have it put on. I am actually quite em- barrassed to ask you to fuss with such a thing but I console myself knowing that you would not be doing it just as a favor to me but also as a favor to that clever little woman herself. About myself I can report that in physics I am quite satisfied, because my thought of conceiving Schrödinger’s wave field as a “ghost field” in your sense[3] is increasingly proving its worth. Pauli and Jordan[4] have made fine advances in this direction. Naturally, the probability field does not move in normal space but in phase (or configuration) space. We have also already “almost” found the connec- tion to the Maxwell field with light quanta. Schrödinger’s[5] accomplishment reduces to something purely mathematical his physics is quite meager. With warm regards, your Max Born
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