9780192806727.pdf

(Kiana) #1

516 APPENDICES


'The question of who should get the prize first is hard to answer. Personally,
I assess Schroedinger's achievement as the greater one, since I have the impression
that the concepts created by him will carry further than those of Heisenberg.
[Here Einstein adds a footnote: This, however, is only my own opinion, which
may be wrong.] On the other hand, the first important publication by Heisenberg
precedes the one by Schroedinger. If I had to decide, I would give the prize first
to Schroedinger.'
Einstein's judgment of the relative scientific merits of Schroedinger's and Hei-
senberg's work was indeed wrong. This may not have helped the deliberations in
Stockholm. No physics prize is awarded in 1931.



  1. January 1932. Einstein writes in support of the peace prize for the
    Englishman Herbert Runham Brown.* (At about the same time, a similar pro-
    posal is also made by twenty-five members of the British parliament.) Of Brown,
    honorary secretary of War Resisters' International, Einstein writes, 'Mr Runham
    Brown is, in my opinion, the most meritorious active fighter in the service of
    pacificism, who has indefatigably served this important cause with great
    courage....'

  2. September 29, 1932. 'Again this year I propose Professor E. Schroedinger
    from Berlin. I am of the opinion that our understanding of the quantum phenom-
    ena has been furthered most by his work in connection with the work of de Brog-
    lie.' The distinction between Schroedinger and Heisenberg is still present.
    The Nobel committee for physics decides to drop the 1931 prize altogether and
    to postpone the 1932 award until 1933. In 1933 they award the 1932 prize to
    Heisenberg and the 1933 prize jointly to Schroedinger and Dirac.

  3. October 27, 1935. Einstein has written twice before in support of others'
    peace prize proposals. This time he makes his own suggestion. 'Formally speak-
    ing, I have no right to propose a candidate for the Nobel peace prize,' but, he
    adds, his conscience demands that he write anyway. He then proposes Carl von
    Ossietzky, 'a man who, by his actions and his suffering, is more deserving of it
    than any other living person.' Such an award, Einstein continues, would be 'a
    historic act that would suit to a high degree the solution of the peace problem.'**
    Von Ossietzky was chief editor of Die Weltbilhne, a pacifist political weekly in
    Berlin, when on March 12, 1929, an article appeared in its columns in which it
    was revealed that much of the research and development for German civil aviation
    was secretly directed toward military purposes. Both the author of the article and
    von Ossietzky were accused of treason and sentenced to eighteen months in jail.
    He received amnesty in December 1932. In February 1933, very soon after the
    Nazis came to power, he was sent to a concentration camp. Efforts to nominate


*For the circumstances surrounding this action, see [N2]
**See [N3] for an account of the delicate problems arising from this proposal by Einstein and by
others. See [Gl] for a detailed biography of Ossietzky.
Free download pdf