D O C . 2 7 4 J A N U A R Y 1 9 2 0 2 2 7 ing for a position in Germany.[2] I thank you very much indeed for this nice impres- sion you have retained of me and hope that with your help I may still succeed in escaping the miserable circumstances here. It is probably not new to you that we here in Austria, particularly the middle class and the intelligentsia, are gradually going to ruin and that, with a complete lack of available positions in my field, there is no prospect of deliverance from it for me in particular through employment in this country. My last hope is thus placed on Germany, that something still will crop up for me, after all, toward which your benevolent support would be a mighty help, of course. Allow me to take this opportunity to touch upon a few scientific issues as well. First of all, I would like to inform you that at the wish of Prof. Oppenheim I took on a short survey article on gravitation for the astron. volume of the Math. Enzyklo- pädie. More precisely, I am assigned the modern portion of the task (the earlier one has been assumed by Oppenheim).[3] I consider my article as somewhat of a con- tinuation of Zenneck’s in the physics volume,[4] whereby with regard to your the- ory I place emphasis on its connection to gravitation. The principle of relativity, as such, will obviously go into the phys. volume (as I hear, by Pauli, Junior).[5] I would be very glad to be able to obtain your k[ind] advice on the paper. Will you perhaps allow me to forward the relevant sheets to you for your review before the final version of the article, as you once most generously permitted me to do in Ber- lin on a similar occasion? Furthermore, I would like to take the liberty of posing a question relating to your researches on radiation theory. I mean the strand of 1905 (light quantum hypothe- sis), which you (in modified form) carried further at the scientists’ convention at Salzburg in 1909 and in the Physikal. Zeitschrift of 1917.[6] Have you followed these ideas further since then, and do you still adhere to them? This would please me because I tried to get to the bottom of the nature of light in a protracted analysis of diffraction. I have submitted a preliminary notice about it to the V[iennese] Academy for publication,[7] while a detailed paper is still in preparation. I hope thereby to have found a way that corresponds fully to your postulates regarding the elementary process of radiation. If it interests you, I shall send you a separate off- print of the preliminary notice as soon as I have such a thing in hand. In closing I would like to thank you again most heartily for the generous good- will you are showing toward me. Let me express the hope that there is nothing left to be desired now, healthwise,[8] and accept my avowals of sincere admiration and devotion, yours, F. Kottler. Note at head of document: “Answered on 5 Feb. 20. I[lse] E[instein].”