4 4 0 D O C U M E N T 5 1 1 O N A U R E L S T O D O L A social problems of our time. Solitary, like all independent men, he suffered from the feeling of being responsible for the dreadful things that humans do to other hu- mans, and from the feeling of impotence that tragic mass events relentlessly instill in us. Although he is unusually successful and beloved by many people, his sensi- tivity must have led to a painful loneliness. But his rich nature provides him with compensations: a happy love for music and for his two daughters,[3] to whom he transmitted the warmth of his character. He lost his daughter Helene not long ago his obituary for her, composed in deep despondency, testifies to a rare ardor for spiritual community.[4] The inner richness of this wonderful man is shown precisely in his deep pain. But we—that is, all those who have been delighted and strengthened by his spirit, his personality, and his radiant goodness—gratefully reach out our hands to him and wish him many more happy years of creative work and observation, in awareness of the fertility of his efforts and the warm affection of all those who have come to know him and his work. * [5] “The news that Stodola is giving up teaching has deeply affected me. The youthful freshness of our meeting last year, which was all the more impressive be- cause he mentioned that he had just recovered from a serious illness, allowed me to take his allusions to old age and retirement from teaching as merely advance no- tices of something still far in the future. What the school is losing is known to anyone who is still influenced, a third of a century later, by those unforgettable lessons, as the essence of technical insight and technical creation dawned on us, as bearings, connecting rods, seals, and reg- ulating procedures rose out of a formally closed distance and turned into a life with which we could empathize and filled us ourselves with creative confidence. Through the years, how Reynolds’s half-forgotten investigations into the nature of fluid flows shone as a high point, and became decisive for the understanding of friction that splendid sketching exercise, in which spatial conception and physical understanding were made to serve conscious construction in the simplest, most ef- fective form. There we learned not merely what technology is, but the whole of in- tellectually mastered creativity stood forever before us. Now what we have to do is to make this creative power closer and all the more effective for us because it is released from the bonds of the teaching profession. We have to preserve for us old people and for the rising generation the stream of life that caught us up and carried us along from the first encounter on. For years, Stodola has focused on nurturing the intellectual forum. That will happen all the more freely and unrestrictedly if we are able to stay close to him. A great deal depends on the development of a common sense of humanity. The teacher who is now leaving the school, but who cannot abandon the young, to whom the serenity and clarity of a higher world speak, is one of the very few people—the very few on whom we can all count as we continue to build.”