DOCS.
380,
381
APRIL
1912 285
No
matter
how much
I tried, I
found
it
absolutely impossible
to
construct such
a
model
of the
mechanism of
dissociation
that
would
provide
for
a
good
ending
if
one
pursues
this
route.
381. To Alfred
Kleiner
Prague,
3
April
1912
Highly
esteemed
Prof.
Kleiner:
First of
all,
many
thanks for
your
friendly
words
of
welcome,[1]
which would have
delighted
me even
without
the
added
confession.
I'm
rushing
to
answer
your
inquiry,
because
the
matter
is
quite
urgent.[2]
From
among
the
men
you
mentioned, I
would first
rule
out
Reinganum, Born,
and
Happel.[3]
Reinganum's papers
are
rather
sloppy[4]
but
they are,
nevertheless,
so
well
regarded
that
his call
to
Zurich
might
be
seen
by
the Germans
as a reason
to
call him
back
again.
Born
is,
to be
sure,
a
good
mathematician,
but
so
far
he
has
not
demon-
strated
much
acumen
for
matters
physical.
Happel's papers
are
certainly interesting
but
in
my
opinion not
original
enough to
serve as
the basis for
a
job
offer.
As for
Gans,[5]
I
think that
he should
get a higher rating.
But he
also
does
not
seem
to have
a
sharp
eye
for
physics;
for it
took
him much too
long
to
take
notice
of
the
important
papers
of
P.
Weiss,[6]
even
though
magnetism
is
his
primary
field.
Laue[7] is
in
my
opinion
the most
important
of
the
younger
German theoreticians.
His
book
on relativity
is
a
real
little
masterpiece,[8]
and much
of
it is
his
own
intellectual
property.
Laue
is
a
man
of
definite formal
talent,
from whom much
that
is
good
is
still
to
be
expected.
The
fact
that
he has still
not
received
any
calls
is probably
due to his
reputation
as a
poor
teacher.[9]
But
I know all this
only
from
hearsay,
of
course.
Nevertheless, if I knew
that Laue
would
stay
in
Zurich
for
good,
he would be
my
first
choice.
Finally,
I would like to draw
your
attention
to P. Ehrenfest[10]
(St.
Petersburg),
who
should be
given
serious consideration. He
has
a
very
independent
mind
and has
recently
written
a
few
quite
remarkable
things.
It
is
worth
noting
that Abraham
pointed
him
out
to
me
in
connection
with the
refilling
of
my
position here.[11]
He
recently
visited
me
here,[12]
and
I
marveled
at
his
sharp
mind.
He
gave
such
a
good
lecture
on
the radiation
problem
before
our
mathematical
society[13]
that
my colleagues
want
very
much
to
have
him
here. But he
adamantly
refuses
to
profess
any religious
affiliation
and therefore
cannot
get
a
job
in Austria, and
probably
not in
Germany either.[14]
Maybe
I
am
especially partial
to him
because
he has
been
here;
ask
Debije
whether he
too
regards
him
highly.[15]
Ehrenfest
has not
yet
habilitated,
but
he
intends
to
do
so
at
the
Polytechnic
in
Zurich.[6]