DOC.
291
OCTOBER
1911
211
291.
Heinrich
Zangger
to
Ludwig
Forrer
Zurich, 9
October
1911
To Federal Councillor
Forrer,
Bern
Highly
esteemed
Sir:
I
am
pleased to
provide you
with
the information
you
requested,
the
more
so
because I
can
set
some misconceptions
straight.
I.
For
a
teachers'
college
like
the
one
at
the
Federal
Polytechnical
University,[1]
a
proper
theoretical
physicist
is
a
necessity
these
days-this
necessity
has
very
little to do
with the
reorganization
that
has
been under
discussion for
a long
time,
especially
because
II.
Einstein needs
no
laboratory[2]
or
assistant
whatsoever,
and
would not have
one
either here
or
in
Prague,[3] nor
in Utrecht.[4]
I
am
convinced
that
Prof.
Weiss,[5]
who
is
aware
of Einstein's
importance,
would
immediately
find
ways
to
provide
for Einstein's
needs
via his institute.
I know from
a
conversation
with Weiss in
Karlsruh[6]
how
highly
he
regards
Einstein.
If need
be,
I
myself
could offer him
space
and facilities for his
lectures for
a
few
years.[7]
III.
The
very
weighty
supposition
that Einstein
wants
a
position
with few
teaching
duties
(an
area
of
activities
tailored
to
him)[8]
is
ill-founded,
and
I
can
refute
this
assumption
with
Einstein's
own
words:
He
told
me
once,
"I love to
teach
all
of
theoretical
physics,
and I
will be
guided
by
the
needs
of
the
school"-And
this
is
what
he
did
both here and
in
Prague
(six
hours of
lecturing
plus
several
hours of seminars
and
exercises
and
doctoral
candidates).[9]
IV. Einstein
as a
teacher.[10]
I
take the
liberty
of
presenting
my
own
opinion
on
this
matter,
because
as
long
as
Einstein
was
in
Zurich, I
listened
to
his
lectures several hours
a
week.
He
is not
a good
teacher
for
intellectually lazy
gentlemen
who
only
want
to
fill
up
a
notebook and learn
it
by
heart
for the
examination;
he
is
not
a
fine talker,
but whoever
wants to
learn
how to
develop
his
ideas about
physics
in
an
honest
way,
from
deep
within,
how to check all
premises
with
circumspection,
and how to
recognize
all
of the
hurdles
and
problems,
and how
to
estimate
the limits of
reliability
of
an
argument,
he
will find in
Einstein
a
first-class
teacher,
because all
of this
finds
suggestive
expression
in
his
lectures,
which
forces
the audience
to
think
along,
and reveals
the
scope
of
the
problem;
his
lectures
are
very
similar
to
those of
Curie and
Langevin,
which,
like
those
of
Einstein,
I
attended for
one
year.-[11]
Unless
you
cancel
our
meeting,
I
will
come
to
Bern
with
Einstein
to
see
you
at
noon on
Saturday.[12]
With
my
sincerest
compliments,
Zangger
Enclosure
Previous Page Next Page