602
DOCS.
576,
577
JUNE-JULY
1918
With
best
wishes for
your holidays,
heartfelt
greetings
from
your
Papa.
I
am
living
at: Old Customs House.
Ahrenshoop (Pomerania) (until
mid-August).
When do
you
have
your
fall
vacation?[5]
577. From Peter
Debye
Göttingen,
2
July 1918
Dear
Einstein,
Enclosed
I
am
sending
you
a
copy
of
a
notice
that
I
presented
last
Friday
to
the
local Sciences
Society:[1]
You
are probably wondering
about this
mailing,
since
you are,
of
course,
used to
receiving only finally
printed
items from
me
and
therefore
suspect
that this
communication must have
a
very specific purpose.
This
naturally is
the
case
as
well.
In
brief
summary,
the
aim of
the
following
exposition
is
this:
a)
I
believe
that
the points
treated
in the notice have some bearing on problems
that
ought to claim great interest.
b)
For
their further
experimental
treatment
these points pose high demands with
regard
to
experimental means, such high demands
that
I
cannot meet
them
with-
out assistance.
c)
In this
situation,
I
turn
confidently to you
as
director
of
the
K.
W.
Institute
of
Physics and ask
for
your
support.
Now
that
I
have unburdened
myself
and
you
need fear
no more
surprises,
I
am
surely
permitted to
give a more
detailed
report
on
what
we
intend.
Our
investigations
with
X
rays
stemmed from considerations
on
the inner
atomistic
cause
of
scattering.
It
is
assumed
that
the
electrons in
an
atom, brought
into motion
by
primary radiation,
cause
secondary
radiation
following
classical
laws. If
this
is
the
case,
then
an
interference
effect of
these electrons
is
present
in
the
scattering,
which
in
observation is
translated
into
a
dependence
between
the
scattering intensity
and
the
angle
between
the
primary
and
scattered
ray.
From
the
present
notice
you
will
draw
the
experimental
bases in
support
of
the
accuracy
of
this
conception.
This
conception
suggests
that
through
correct eval-
uation of
the
intensity
observations,
inferences
can
be made
about the number
of
electrons and
the
distance between them.
I
already spoke
with
you
once
cursorily
about this
subject but,
as
I recall,
we
did not
go
very deeply
into it at
the
time,