Translated by Irene Born Newton-John; closing comment by Max Born.1
This letter antedates by a year or
two the "new" quantum mechanics of Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, Pasqual Jordan, and Erwin Schrödinger.
Einstein begins with a response to a letter about Japan by Born's wife, Hedi—a letter that
has since been lost. But then, as he would for the next 30 years, Einstein launches into his differences
with Max on the interpretation of quantum phenomena. If atomic phenomena are truly random, he grumbles,
he'd rather be a croupier.
November 2005, page 14
Berlin, 29 April 1924
Dear Borns,
Your letter, dear Mrs. Born, was really
excellent. Indeed, what causes the sense of well-being inspired by Japanese society and art is
that the individual is so harmoniously integrated into his wider environment that he derives his
experiences not from the self, but mainly from the community. Each of us longed for this when we were
young, but we had to resign ourselves to its impossibility. For, of all the communities available
to us there is not one I would want to devote myself to, except for the society of the true searchers,
which has very few living members at any time.
. . . Bohr's opinion about
radiation is of great interest. But I should not want to be forced into abandoning strict causality
without defending it more strongly than I have so far. I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron
exposed to radiation should choose, of its own free will, not only its moment to jump off,
but also its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house,
than a physicist. Certainly my attempts to give tangible form to the quanta have foundered again
and again, but I am far from giving up hope. And even if it never works, there is always that consolation
that this lack of success is entirely mine.
. . . With best wishes.
Yours
Einstein
. . . Your pretty remark [Mrs. Born, about subject unknown] makes me want to stroke your head, if that is at all permissible
in the case of a married lady.
Max Born's 1969 comments:1
The letter from my wife to which Einstein replied is missing. The basic reason for the dispute between
[Einstein and me] on the validity of statistical laws was as follows: Einstein was firmly convinced
that physics can supply us with knowledge of the objectively existing world. Together with many
other physicists, I have been gradually converted, as a result of experiences in the field of atomic
quantum phenomena, to the point of view that this is not so. At any given moment, our knowledge of
the objective world is only a crude approximation from which, by applying certain rules such as
the probability laws of quantum mechanics, we can predict unknown (e.g. future) conditions.
Featured Jobs
