396
DISCUSSION
OF
DOCUMENT
60
may
know
a
little about absorption,
but
what
about
emission?
We
imagine
that
it is
produced
by
the acceleration
of
electrons.
But
this is the
weakest
point
in the entire
theory
of
electrons.
One imagines
that the electron
possesses
a
certain
volume and
a
certain finite
charge
density,
whether
due to
a
volume
or
surface
charge,
one
cannot
manage
without that;
this,
however,
conflicts in
a
certain
sense
with the atomistic
conception
of
electricity.
These
are
not
impossibilities but
difficulties,
and
I
am
almost surprised that
this
has not
met
with
more
opposition.
This is the
point, I
believe,
at
which
the
quantum
theory
can
be
employed
with
advantage.
We can
stipulate the
laws
for
large
time intervals
only. But
for small time intervals
and great
accelerations
we
still face
a
gap
whose
filling
requires
new
hypotheses. Perhaps
we
may
be
allowed
to
assume
that
an
oscillating
resonator does not have
a
continuously
variable
energy,
but that its
energy
is
a
simple
multiple of
an
elementary
quantum
instead. I believe that
by
using
this
theory
one can
arrive
at
a
satisfactory
theory of
radiation.
The
question
is, then:
How
does
one
visualize
something
like
that?
That
is
to
say, one
asks for
a
mechanical
or
electrodynamic model
of such
a
resonator. But
mechanics and current
electrodynamics do not provide
for discrete elements
of action, and hence
we
cannot
produce
a
mechanical
or
electrodynamic
model.
Thus, mechanically
this
seems
impossible, and
we
will
have
to get
used
to
that. After
all,
our
attempts to mechanically
represent
the luminiferous ether also
have
failed
completely.
There
were
also
attempts
to
conceive the electric
current
in
a
mechanistic
way,
and to
compare
it with
a
stream
of
water,
but this
too had to be
abandoned, and
as one
became
used
to
that,
so one
will have
to get
used
to
such
a
resonator.
Of
course,
this
theory
would have
to
be worked
out
in
much
greater
detail than has
been
done
so
far;
perhaps
someone
else will
have
more
luck with it than
I
had.
In
any
case,
I
think that first
of
all
one
should
attempt to
transfer the
whole
problem
of
the
quantum
theory to
the
area
of
interaction
between
matter and
radiation
energy;
the
processes
in
pure
vacuum
could then
temporarily be
explained
with the aid of the
Maxwell equations.
H.
Ziegler:
If
the uratoms
of matter
are
conceived
as
invisible tiny
spheres
that
possess unchanging speed
of light,
then
it
is possible
to
describe
all interactions
of
corpuscular
states and
electromagnetic phenomena,