DOC. 627
SEPTEMBER
1918
657
wanted
to
suspect
such
a
thing could,
with
about
equal legitimacy,
have been
confronted
with the
statement
that
such
a
thing
obviously
“does
not exist.”
2)
Even
given
that
it
was
certain
that
no
fact could
ever
be discovered forc-
ing
us
to
attribute
physical importance
to
an
absolute
place
in
space, surely
it
cannot be forbidden
to represent
the
facts in such
a
language-which is
possible;
therefore,
presenting
the
new
theory
of
relativity
in
approximately
the
same way
that
Lorentz
had
presented
the
old
one.[5]
3)
The
assertion: There
is
no
such
a
thing
as an
absolute
place
(or space),
really appears
senseless to
me.
How
can one
presume
to make
a
statement
about
something
about
which
we
admittedly
know
nothing?
These
are
my
basic
reservations;
I
do not
regard
them
as
serious, especially
considering
that
in
the
history
of
science
it
has
rarely
been
the
case
that
discover-
ies
of
great consequence
were
not
exaggerated.
I
find
that
in
your
representations,
as
far
as
I
understand
them,
what counts
is
in
the best
of
order. Not
even
ele-
gance
do
I
miss in
your style.
I
absolutely
do not
agree
with
Boltzmann, however,
concerning
cobblers and
tailors.[6]
The
“elegance”
of
the formulas in
the
theory
of
invariants,
for
example,
is
a
characteristic
of
natural
laws
whose existence must
not be
ignored.
To
me,
Boltzmann
is
unreadable. If he has
a
symbol
for
x,
he
then
needs
another
one
for
nx
and
one
for n2x and
a
third
one
besides for
3/2nx.
That
is
simply sloppiness
and
totally
insufferable.
Nobody
has
the
right
to
publish papers
in
the draft
stage.
I
also have
a
few
misgivings
about the
conclusion to
your
exposition.[7]
In
a
[quasi-]spherical
space,
the
[approximate][8]
function
c/sin2r
would have
to
take
the
place
of
the
function
c/r2.
Or
am
I
wrong?
If this
were
the
case, though,
if
furthermore
gravitation
needs time for its
propagation,
and
third
of
all,
if
no
screening
effect is
present,
then
very
strange
consequences
would result from
the
convergence
of
the
force lines
at
the
antipodes.[9]
A
body moving
in such
a
way
would have
its
mirror
image
at
the
antipodes,
of
which
only
the
gravitational
field
would be verifiable. This mirror
image
would have
a
second in
the
proximity
of “the
body
itself,”
this
one a
third
image again
at
the
antipodes, etc.,
ad
infinitum.[10]
Could
one
then
also arrive at
knowledge
of
the
physical
laws? Your
little
essay
contains
no
mention of these difficulties
(to
which others
are
added in
an elliptic space),
and
even
less is
said
about
how
you
come
to terms
with
them.
Shouldn’t
this
be clarified? If
the
spherical hypothesis
were
tenable,
the
flare-ups
of
new
stars could
probably
be
explained
with it.
Who
is
Schlick?
A
physicist
or a
philosopher?
I
find his
little
book
very
charming,
but
he
treated
me
miserably
in
it.
All
that the
reader learns
about
my