DOC.
400
MAY
1912 301
opinion
that
among
the
country's
own
theoretical
physicists
there
are
several
individuals
of such
ability,
so
that
it
seemed natural
to
include
only
Austrians
in
the
proposal.
It
turned
out
that,
among
those
who should be considered,
two men, namely
Paul
Ehrenfest and
Philipp
Frank,
both
from Vienna,
are
to be
proposed first,
owing
to
their
outstanding
scientific
accomplishments.
Further, the commission believes
that
it should
propose
Mr. E.
Kohl,
who had
already
been
included in
the
proposal
at
the time of the
last
vacancy.[3]
All
three of the candidates named here
are
of German
nationality.
Paul Ehrenfest
was
born
in
1880
in Vienna,
where
he also
attended
and
completed
the
Gymnasium.
He studied
mainly
at
the
universities in
Vienna
and
Göttingen.
On the
basis
of
a
work
on
hydrodynamics
he
was
awarded the doctoral
degree
in 1904 in
Vienna.[4]
After that
he moved
to St. Petersburg,
where
he lives
for
his studies, and
privately
leads
a
seminar,
unattached
to
the
university
there.
Ehrenfest's
papers
deal
mainly
with
the
kinetic
theory
of heat and the
statistical
theory
of radiation.
Owing
to his
outstanding
critical
abilities,
several of these
papers
made essential contributions
to
clarifying
the
problems
considered. From
among
his
numerous
publications,
we are
singling
out the
following
ones as
especially
important:
"Uber
die
physikalischen
Voraussetzungen
der Planck'schen Theorie der
irreversiblen
Strahlungsvorgänge"
["On
the
Physical Assumptions
of
Planck's
Theory
of
Irreversible Radiation
Processes"].[5]
"Uber
zwei
bekannte Einwände
gegen
das
Boltzmann'sche H-Theorem"
[On
Two
Familiar
Objections
against
Boltzmann's
H-Theorem"]
(1907).[6]
"Gleichförmige
Rotation
starrer
Körper
und
Relativitäts-theorie"
["Uniform
Rotation of
Rigid
Bodies and the
Theory
of
Relativity"]
(1909).[7]
"Welche
Züge
der
Lichtquantenhypothese spielen
in
der Theorie der
Wärmestrahlung
eine wesentliche Rolle?"
[Which
Traits
of
the
Light
Quantum
Hypothesis Play
an
Essential Role
in
the
Theory
of Thermal
Radiation?"]
(1911).[8]
In
the
first of
these
papers
it
is
demonstrated that
in
Planck's
theory
of radiation
a
role
is
played
not
only by
those
assumptions
that
have
been
postulated at
the
beginning
of
the
investigation
and
are
taken
from
electrodynamics
and
mechanics,
but
that
Planck's
theory
also has
hidden
within it
a new
physical assumption,
which
is
in
need of
physical
interpretation.
The
second
of
the cited
papers
rebuts
with
great
acumen
the
objection
often raised
against
the
kinetic
theory
of
heat,
namely
that
it
is
impossible
to trace
irreversible
thermal
processes
to
(friction-free)
motions
because the
latter
are
always
reversible.
The
third of
the cited
publications
demonstrates
in
a
vivid
manner
the
difficulties
occasioned
by
the
introduction of
rigid
bodies in the
theory
of
relativity.
The
fourth
paper is
a
thorough
and
ingenious study
of
the
question:
What
statistical
properties
must
we
attribute
to
radiation
in
order
to
satisfy
the radiation
formula,
insofar
as
the
latter
is
confirmed
by
experience.