DOCS.
288,
289
SEPTEMBER
1911 209
provides a
starting point
for the theoretical
understanding
of
gravitation.[13]
It
would be
important
to show
that
my
result
is incompatible
with
experience-precisely
because of
its theoretical
significance;
the
road
I
took
might
be the
wrong
one,
but
it
had
to be
tried
out.
With
best
regards,
your
most
devoted
A.
Einstein
P.S.
If
you
write
to
me during
the
next
month,
please
send
the letter
to
my
private
address,
Trebizkeho
uliza
1215
(Prag)-Smichov,
because
I
will be out
of
town.
289.
From
Willem Julius
[Utrecht]
27
September 1911
The
contents
of
your
last
letter make
me
extremely
happy.[1]
I
only
hope
that further
communications
reaching
you
from
Utrecht
and from
Zurich[2]
will
not
spoil our good
chances.
Our
old-age
pension is
kept separate
from
the
pensions
for widows
and
orphans,
and
is set up
as
follows.
One
must
retire
at
age
70 and
may
retire
at
65,
and
is
then entitled
to
the full
pension, up to
3000
f.
In
case
of
an
earlier
disability
one
gets
a
part
of the
pension,
in
proportion
to the
number of
years
served.
For
all
this,
one
pays
750
f
annually
for the first 4
years,
and
afterwards
nothing.
The
widows'
pension is
very
small,
only
690
f
annually.
Add
to
this
138 f
for
each
child,
that
is to
say, e.g.,
414
f
for
3 children,
which
sum
is paid in its
entirety
until
the
youngest
child has reached
the
age
of
18.
If
the
mother
also
dies,
then
the
orphans'
pension is
set at
280 f
for
each
child. All
along
there
is
a 120
f
deduction
from
the
year's
salary
for this widows' and
orphans'
pension. Moving expenses
are
not
reimbursed.
Of
course,
the
job
would have to be
started
as soon as
possible;
but that
you
could
come no sooner
than after
the
end of
the
winter
semester
one
would most
certainly
find
understandable
and would
accept
it.
Naturally,
professors
change jobs
much less
frequently
in Holland
than
in
Germany.
For that
reason,
when
a
foreigner is
given
an
appointment,
he
is
usually
told
that
he
is
expected
to
stay
with
the
university
for
an
appropriate
number of
years;
however,
he is
not required to
commit
himself
for
a
definite time.
The
way
I
see
it,
the
smallness of the
mean
shift of
the
chromosphere
lines
(0.002
A)[3]
observed
by
Hale
and
Adams
does
not cast
doubt
on
your conception,[4]
because
these
shifts
were
measured relative
to
the
Frauenh.
lines
of
the
spectrum
at
the
limb;
on
average,
the lines
of the
limb
spectrum
are displaced
0.005
toward the
red[5]
relative
to
the
spectral
lines
of
the
center,
and
these,
again,
are
displaced by
about the
same
amount
toward
the red relative
to
the
terrestrial
lines.[6] Thus,
the
mean
displacement
of the