DOCS.
388,
389
OCTOBER
1917 385
388. To
Walter
Schottky
[Berlin,
10
October
1917]
Dear
Colleague,
I
believe
you
are
right
with
your
interpretation.
A
singular
case
really
is
all
that
is
involved,
which
thus
cannot claim
principal significance.
I
have similar curiosities
as
well.[1] E.g.:
Let
a
little
rod
S
be
freely
rotatable
on a
plane
(1
degree
of
freedom).
Specific possible
motions exist
there,
consistent
with
quantum
conditions. If the
little
rod
is
suspended
on an
arbitrarily
thin
torsion thread,
then the
whole
thing
changes fundamentally.
The
case
is
similar, incidentally,
to
that
of
a
mass-point moving freely
to
and
fro between two elastic
walls.
In
order to know what
a
system may
do and
allow,
it
has to have
a memory
that,
depending on
the
case,
must
cover
immense
periods
of
time,
whereas
we are
used
to
the
assumption
that the
state
of
a
system,
which
causally
determines
the
subsequent
states, is
an
instantaneous state.
Best
regards, yours,
A.
Einstein.
389.
From Adolf von Harnack
Berlin,
10
October
1917
The Honorable Professor
A.
Einstein,
locally.
Highly
esteemed
Colleague,
To
the
obliging message
of
the
6th
of
this
mo.[1]
I
humbly reply
that
I
have
agreed
with the
Trustees of
the
Leopold Koppel
Foundation
on
convening
the
Board of Trustees and
the
Board
of
Directors
of
the Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute
of
Physical
Research
shortly
for
a
joint
constituent
meeting.[2]
The
date
cannot
be scheduled
at
the
moment,
as
the Board
of
Trustees has
not
yet
been
fully
assembled. Mr. Franz
Stock,
whom the Kaiser Wilhelm
Society
had elected
as
member of
the
Board of
Trustees,
did
not
accept
the
nomination,
and
the
Council
must therefore conduct
new
elections.[3]
The
Board of Trustees
of
the
Leopold
Koppel
Foundation
has also not
yet
made the selection of
the
member it
is to
designate.[4]
As
soon as
the
composition
of
the
Board
of
Trustees has been
concluded,
I
shall
take the
liberty of
convening
the
planned joint meeting.