DOC.
555
JUNE
1918 575
555. From Arnold Sommerfeld
[Munich,
after
1
June
1918][1]
D[ear]
E[instein],
Although
this
note contains
absolutely no
secrets,
its contents
probably
do
not
really
fit in
the
official letter.[2]
You have
probably
read
the
new
paper by
Bohr.[3] His
method
of
matching
together
wave
th.
and
quantum th.,
using high
quantum
numbers, appears
to
me
very effective,
even
if
it
does not
offer
any profound
lessons.
Certain
concluding
remarks of Bohr’s coincide with
a
paper
by
Rubinowicz
though,
which meanwhile
has been
submitted to
the
Phys.
Z[ei]tschr[ift]
and
about
which
I
already spoke
to
you
recently.[4]
In
the
ms.
to
my
Planck
speech[5]
[Laue’s
idea of
the
pamphlet
is
appealing, especially appealing
in
that
in this
way
Pl.’s
response
and
your
researcher’s
dithyramb
are
also
recorded.]
I
expanded
on
the
matter
a
bit further
than
I
could in
the
speech.
Somewhat
like
this:
It
is
not
the
atom,
but the
ether,
whose
métier it
is
to oscillate.
It
has
this
completely
Maxwellian
occupation,
just
as
it must do in accordance with
the
amounts
of
energy
and momentum
of
the
atom.
It
has
not
yet
been established
definitely
that the
energy
and momentum
data determine the
ether’s oscillation.
But there
are so
many
confirmations of
the
interpretation
already,
with
polarization
in the Zeeman
and
Stark
effects,
and with the
(since specified)
quantum inequalities,
that
I
do not
doubt their
soundness.[6]
For
the last
fortnight I
have been
writing
a
popular
book
on
Atombau und
Spektrallinien
[Atomic
Structure and
Spectral Lines],
the
text itself for
chemists,
the
supplements
also for
physicists.[7]
From
Siegbahn
I
learned
of
a
pretty
confirmation
of
an
initially
unexpected
finding
on
X-ray spectra.[8]
Kß
is
a
double
line;
the
L
ring expands
at
an
electron’s
transition
out
of
the M
ring
into
the K
ring,
and in
doing
so
reveals its double
nature.
Could
you
not
obtain
from
a
Berlin benefactor
a
special grant
for
the
presen-
tation of
talks
at
the
G[erman] Ph[ysical]
Soc.?
As
the
first
speaker,
I
suggest
Siegbahn,
for
ex.,
or
Bohr. As
you
see,
I
am
already
starting to
meddle
in
the
Society’s
affairs.
Yours,
A.
Sommerfeld.