308
DOCS.
407,
408
JUNE
1912
407. To Max
Laue
[Prague,
10
June
1912]
Dear
Mr.
Laue,
I
congratulate
you
with all
my
heart
on
the wonderful
success.
Your
experiment is
one
of the
most
beautiful
experiments
physics
has
ever seen.
Will
you
be in
Munich
at
the end
of
July?
We could
talk there about the
objections
you
hinted
at.
If
these
could be
put
briefly,
I
would be
grateful
if
you
related them
in
a
letter.
I would also like to
talk
with
our colleague
Sommerfeld about the
h-questions.
Perhaps I
will
pluck up
some courage
and
go
to Munich
in the
near
future.
With best
regards
to
you
and
colleague Sommerfeld,
your
A.
Einstein
408.
To
Ludwig
Hopf
Prague,
12 June
[1912][1]
Dear
Mr.
Hopf,
I
was
delighted
with
your
surprising
announcement
that
you
have
become
engaged.[2]
I
only
wish
you
that the other
party
may
bring
as
much contentment and
good
humor
into
the
marriage
as you
will,
then
it
cannot
go wrong.
In the meantime,
Laue
sent
me
a
photograph
of
his
deflection
phenomenon
with
Röntgen-rays.[3]
It's the
most
marvelous
thing
I have
ever
seen![4]
Bending
at
the
individual
molecules,
whose
arrangement is
thereby
revealed. The
photograph is sharp,
which
one hardly
would have
expected
in
view
of the thermal
agitation.
The
setup
may
have
been
as
follows:
source
of
phosphorescence Röntgen-rays
f 55"
-,1
W
screen
\
^
\
photograph, plate
J
Röntgen[tube?]
crystal
lamina
I
have
now
finished
my investigations on
the
statics
of
gravitation
and
place great
trust in
the
results.[5]
But
the
generalization
seems
to
be
very
difficult.
My
results
do not
agree
with those of Abraham.
Contrary
to his
usual
practice,
he worked
quite
superficially
this time.
Even
his
treatment
of
space
and time
is
untenable.[6]
Along
with
these
papers,
I
am
also
sending you
a
thermodynamical
paper
on
the
law
of
photochemi-
cal
equivalence.[7]
I
beg you
to
read
it,
because
it reveals
clearly
the
assumptions leading