3 1 8 D O C U M E N T 2 2 6 D E C E M B E R 1 9 1 9
[3]A day earlier, Debye had announced that he wanted to consult Einstein on his Zurich appoint-
ment during his planned visit to Berlin (see Doc. 221). Einstein had been Professor of Theoretical
Physics at the ETH from 1912 to 1914 (for the terms of this appointment, see Vol. 5, Doc. 341, note
1). In August 1918, Einstein had been offered a joint professorship from the university and the ETH
which only involved the obligation of two five-week lecture courses in Zurich per year so that Einstein
could keep his Berlin positions. For the terms of this appointment, see Edgar Meyer to Einstein, 11
August 1918, and Einstein to Meyer, 18 August 1918 (Vol. 8, Docs. 599 and 602). After giving a first
lecture cycle in Zurich in January and February 1919 and another one in July 1919, Einstein had just
received another offer of a full professorship in Zurich (see Doc. 214). A week later, he would not
only reject the offer but also renounce his earlier agreement to give lectures in Zurich (see Doc. 235).
[4]Invited by the German Chemical Society, Debye gave a survey lecture on the “Structure of the
Atom” (“Atombau”) on 19 November 1919 (see Schweizerischer Schulrat to Departement des Innern,
19 January 1920, Sz-Ar,E 80/829 Debye, Bl. 8).
[5]Debye was to arrive in Berlin on December 27 (see Doc. 221).
[6]To be made head of the Physics Department was also one of Debye’s demands for the Zurich
appointment (see Doc. 221, note 5). Robert Pohl.
226. To Richard von Mises
Berlin W. 30 Haberlandstr. 5., den 21. Dez. 19.
Hochgeehrter Herr Kollege!
Ich habe Ihr Manuskript Ihrer Weisung gemäss an Debye geschickt, der mir den
Empfang bereits
bestätigte.[1]
Die Frage des Oequipartitions-Satzes scheint mir so zu
liegen.[2]
Sie haben in Ih-
rer Arbeit ein System von Konsequenzen gezeigt, zu welchem man ohne Ergoden-
Hypothese, das heisst ohne unerlaubte zusätzliche statistische Voraussetzungen ge-
langen kann. Sie scheinen mir aber nicht bewiesen zu haben, dass, bezw. in wel-
chen Fällen, aus den Voraussetzungen der Mechanik allein der Aequipartitions-
Satz nicht gefolgert werden kann. Mir scheint es immer noch so zu liegen, dass die
Mechanik den Aequipartitions-Satz verlangt, wenn dies auch noch nicht stringent
bewiesen worden ist. Ich habe den Eindruck, dass man den der Quanten-Theorie
zugrunde liegenden Tatsachen nur durch eine Modifikation oder prinzipielle Spe-
zialisierung der Grundlagen der Mechanik wird gerecht werden können.
Mit freundlichem Gruss Ihr
A. Einstein.
TLS (MH, von Mises Papers, HUG 4574.5, box 1, folder 1919). [81 510]. Addressee’s name is typed
above salutation: “Herrn Prof. Dr. v. Mises Dresden.”
[1]Two days earlier, Peter Debye wrote that he had received Mises’s manuscript (see Doc. 221) for
publication in the Physikalische Zeitschrift, of which he was editor.
[2]In Doc. 205, Mises had expressed his lack of understanding of a remark, made by Einstein in
Doc. 195, on the possibility of deriving the equipartition theorem from the laws of mechanics.