DOCS.
331,
332
DECEMBER
1911 243
It
is
rather certain
that
I will
come
back to
Zurich
(Polytechnic).
The
only thing
still
lacking
is
the
approval
of the
School Council
&
the
Federal
Council.[8]
I
am
sincerely
pleased
about Marie's
getting
married.[9]
Thus
wanes a
dark stain
in
my life.[10]
Now
everything
is
as
it
should
be.
Whom
is
she
marrying?
Pleasant
holidays
and
a
happy
new
year to
you,
Anna,
and
Vero
&
cordial
greetings
from
your
Albert
Don't take
it amiss if
I
do not
respond
to
your
suggestions.
I
simply
don't
have
anything
worthwhile to
say
about
them.
332.
From Paul Habicht
Schaffhausen,
27
December
1911
Dear
A.
E.,
This
is really
a
good
piece
of
news!
If
you come
to Zurich,
then there
will
again
be
a
mensch in
Europe.[1]
The others
were
only
imitations.
For the
time
being,
the
wildfire
that
is to set
the
dried-up
brains
ablaze will
probably
not
be
so
very
serious because there
will be
just
as
many
brains that
are
swollen with water.
The distributor
(the apparatus
with the
many
condensers, and the disc
that
distributes
the
voltages
to them)
will
be
finished
soon,
and I
rejoice
in it
more
and
more,
because
it has
displayed no
flaws
so
far.
Should
it
work
out, it will be the least
expensive
instrument
for
recording
the
alternating
waveforms
of
an
inductor, for
example,
or
of the
alternating current
of
a
generator.
Always
in
conjunction
with
the
Maschinchen.[2]
This could also be
a
little too
inexpensive[3]
-
Distributor
350 mk
p.
multiplier
250 mk
Electrometer
100 mk
700 mk
While
the Siemens-Blondel
oscillograph,[4]
for
example,
comes
to
over
1700 mk.
As
bad
in this
respect,
and
even
much
worse
when
it
comes
to accessories, is
the
glow-light
tube,[5]
which
is
also
a
monster when it
comes
to
interference
voltages.
It will be difficult
to
increase further the
sensitivity
of the
Maschinchen, especially
because of the
recently
discovered
tendency
of the
laminae
to
become
charged
when
one
blows
on
them. This
is
surely
due
to ions
that
have
been
generated
in
the
air
owing
to
radioactivity (as
in
the
Berlin
test)[6]
or
in
some
other
way
and
that
have
then been
deposited
on
the
metal. This
interference,
which
depends
on
the
speed
of rotation
(i.e.,
the air
draft
produced
by
the rotors
themselves)
and
on
the ionization, which
is quite
variable,
will be difficult
to
eliminate
completely.