DOC.
312,
313
NOVEMBER
1911 227
312. To
Ernest
Solvay
Prague,
22 November
1911
Highly
esteemed
Mr.
Solvey:
Thank
you again
with all
my
heart for the wonderful week
you
provided
for
us
in
Brussels,
and
no
less
for
your generous
hospitality.[1]
The
Solvey
Congress
will
remain
forever
one
of
the
most
beautiful memories
of
my
life.
With most
respectful regards,
yours very truly
A.
Einstein
313. To
Hendrik
A.
Lorentz
Prague,
23
Novemebr
1911
Highly
esteemed
Professor Lorentz:
I
write this
letter
with
a
heavy
heart,
like
a
person
who has
done
some
kind of
injustice
to
his father. The
decision
that
I
had
to
make
was
very
difficult
for
me.[1]
Now
I
admit
to
you quite
frankly
that
one
of
my
main
worries
was
that
I
did
not
know
whether
you
would
think
it
proper
if
a
foreigner
were
to
come
to
Utrecht.[2]
After
all,
I
could
not
ask
you directly,
and
no one
else would have
been
able
to
tell
me.
Add
to
this
my
conviction
that
the
young Debije,
who
is
Dutch,
after
all,
is
at
least
my
equal
as
far
as
talent
is
concerned.[3]
You have
probably
sensed
that
I
revere
you beyond
measure.
If
I
had
known
that
you
wanted
me
to
come
to
Utrecht,
I
would have
gone
there. But
it
is
easy
to
understand
why
I did
not
dare
to ask
you.
So
there
is
only one thing
left to
me:
I
beg
you
earnestly not to
be
angry
with
me
for
the
way
I
acted! It
is punishment enough
that
I
am now
denied the
opportunity
of
meeting
with
you
more
frequently.
But
if
you
want
to
remain
on
friendly
terms
with
me
in
spite
of
what
happened,
I
shall
come
to
Holland
from time
to
time
to
talk
with
you.
Also, I
would like
to
ask
you
to
give
me
the
great
pleasure
of
having you as my guests
if
you come
to
Switzerland with
your
family.[4]
I have little
that
is
new
to report
in
physics.
The rotational motion of
a
dipole
in
a
radiation
field
can easily
be
found
by
means
of
a
trick if
one assumes
the
validity
of
mechanics for this
case.
For
according
to
your
general
study,
if
mechanics
is
valid and
if
one
takes
Jeans's
law
as a
basis,
one
must
obtain the
Maxwell distribution.[6] Thus, for
this
case,
the
easily
calculated
emission coefficients
yield
the
absorption
coefficient for
every
frequency
from
Kirchhoff's
law.
After
having
found
out
the
dependency
of the
absorption
coefficients
on
the
statistical
distribution of the
dipoles
in this
way,
one can
easily
find
the
statistical law
of the
dipoles belonging
to
Planck's radiation formula
with
the
help
of the now-established
absorption
(and emission)
laws. But I do not believe
that
the
result thus obtained
is correct,
because the laws
of
mechanics
probably
do
not
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