DOCS.
307,
308
NOVEMBER
1911 223
happy.
This
prospect
induced
me a
few
days ago
to turn down
an
offer from the
University
of
Utrecht.[2]
As
you
well
know, I
completely
share
your
view
that the students of Section VIII
of
the
Poly
are
offered
too
little, or,
rather,
too little
that
is
up
to
date,
in
their senior
semesters.[3] I
would be
delighted
if
I
could
contribute
to
the
closing
of
this
gap.
As for
the
contemplated starting
date of
my
prospective
job,
I
hope
that
the start
of
a
school
year
can
be
chosen,
for this would be
best
from
the
teaching point
of
view,
thus, e.g.,
next
fall.
Greetings
from
my family
to
yours,
also to
your
brother
Eugen,
from
your
friend
Einstein
308. To
Heinrich
Zangger
Prague,
20
November
[1911][1]
Dear friend
Zangger,
So, you
prevailed,
against
all odds:
I would have liked to
see
how
you
did
it![2]
The
promised
letters
from
Grossmann and
Weiss have
arrived,
and I have
already responded
to
Grossmann
with
the
declaration,
which
you
will
take for
granted,
that
I
am willing
in
principle
-.[3]
The
School Council will
meet
in
a
few
days,
and
so
far
as
one
can
predict,
Gnehm
will
then
negotiate
with
me.[4]
I
am
enormously
happy
that
we
will
be
together
again
in
Zurich. If
you
have
time,
we
will
arrange
to meet
regularly
so
that
we can
discuss
everything
that
is
of
interest
to
us.
At the
moment
I
am
engaged
in
a
lively
exchange
with
Haber,[5]
who has
an
uncanny
mental
agility.
He found
a
relationship
vatom
between
the
oscillation
frequencies
of atoms and those
of
electrons
-
velectron
melectron.matom
v
frequencies,
m
atomic
weights.[6]
The relation
is
as
incomprehensible
as
it
is
simple.
The
force that
holds the atom in
place is equal to
the force
holding
its
electron
in
the
rest
position.
The
thing
is
amazingly
correct.
He also formulated
another
law
that
relates
proper frequencies
and the
heats
evolved in chemical
reactions,[7]
but
I do not
believe in its correctness.
I'm
having a
controversy
with
Krüger[8]
about
something
that
he
published
and that
causes
great
confusion
among physical
chemists.
It
has to do with
an
incorrect
thermodynamic
cyclic process.[9]
I also have
a
thing going
with
Warburg,
who
was
in
Brussels.[10]
He
has
incorrectly
shown
that there
must be
a
photochemical
excitation
threshold.[11]
In
this
connection
I
found
an
interesting thermodynamic proof
for the law
of
photochemical
equivalents,[12]
which
Warburg is
going
to
verify.
One
molecule
is
decomposed
by
v-radiation
with the
absorption
of
the
quantity
of
energy
hv.