506 APPENDICES
- Quantum physics. Bohr, Paschen, Planck, Sommerfeld; (prize deferred;
1917 prize goes to Barkla). - Theoretical physics. Knudsen, Lehmann, Planck; (Stark; also, 1918
prize goes to Planck). - Mathematical physics. Bohr, Sommerfeld; (Guillaume).
- Same as 1920; (prize deferred).
- Einstein is not categorized. On November 9 Einstein is awarded the
1921 prize, Bohr the 1922 prize.
Who nominated Einstein? On what grounds? How did the Committee
respond?
The first to propose Einstein was the physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald, to
whom Einstein had unsuccessfully applied for an assistantship in the spring of
1901 (see Chapter 3). Ostwald, winner of the chemistry prize for 1909, the only
one to propose Einstein for 1910, repeated his nominations for the 1912 and 1913
awards. In all three instances, his sole motivation was relativity (until further
notice, relativity shall refer to the special theory). In 1910 he wrote that relativity
was the most far-reaching new concept since the discovery of the energy principle
[Ol]. In his second nomination, he stressed that relativity frees man from bonds
many thousands of years old [O2]. On the third occasion, he emphasized that the
issues were of physical rather than of philosophical principle (as others had sug-
gested) and likened Einstein's contributions to the work of Copernicus and Dar-
win [O3]. For the 1912 Einstein nomination, Ostwald was joined by E. Prings-
heim, C. Schaefer, and W. Wien; for 1913 again by Wien and by Bernhard Nau-
nyn, a German professor of medicine. All these nominations were for relativity
only, though Naunyn added a remark on the quantum theory. Pringsheim wrote,
'I believe that the Nobel Committee will rarely have the opportunity of awarding
a prize for works of similar significance' [PI].
Wien's two nominations were actually for a prize to be shared by Einstein and
Lorentz (and Schaefer proposed either Einstein or else a sharing between Einstein
and Lorentz). It is important to quote again* from Wien's second letter of nomi-
nation. 'Concerning the new experiments on cathode rays and beta rays, I would
not consider them to have decisive power of proof. The experiments are very sub-
tle, and one cannot be sure whether all sources of error have been excluded' [Wl].
At issue was the verification of Einstein's relation between the rest mass, the
energy, and the velocity of a free electron. As was discussed in Chapter 7, by 1908
some experimentalists were already claiming confirmation of the Einstein relation.
Doubts remained, however, as Wien's letter shows; these were not dispelled until
about 1915. Thus, one important confirmation of relativity became noncontro-
versial only after the 1912 nominations had been made. Sommerfeld's theory of
the fine structure of spectral lines, in which essentially the same Einstein relation
is used, also came later, in 1916. By then, the momentous new development of
general relativity had drastically changed the situation.
*I mentioned these same phrases in Section 7e.