Albert Einstein, Important autograph letter signed, to Dr Gustav Herglotz, Berlin, 26 January 1927

Albert Einstein

Important autograph letter signed ("A. Einstein"), to Dr Gustav Herglotz at Göttingen University

sending him proofs, which he asks that he look at closely, stating that he believes he has discovered something interesting, although his powers of mathematics are too weak to enable him to master the problem completely, ANNOUNCING THAT HE IS OF THE VIEW THAT A NEW MATHEMATICAL METHOD NEEDS TO BE DEVELOPED, WITHOUT WHICH PHYSICS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FUNCTION IN THE LONG TERM, asking for his frank views on the matter, and requesting him to show the proofs also to Weyl in Göttingen, should he be there 

...Sie erhalten eine Korrektur von mir, die ich Sie genauer anzusehen bitte. Ich glaube da etwas Interessantes gefunden zu haben. Aber meine schwachen mathematischen Kräfte genügen nicht zur völligen Bewältigung des Problems (S.10!). Ich denke, dass hier eine mathematische Methode zu entwickeln ist, ohne welche die Physik auf die Dauer nicht auskommen kann... 

1 page, 8vo (140 x 90mm.), on a correspondence card, 26 [corrected from '25'] January 1927

Herglotz (1881-1953) was Professor of Mathematics at Göttingen University.

'Allgemeine Relativitätstheorie und Bewegungsgesetz' [General Theory of Relativity and Equations of Motion] was written together by Einstein with J. Grommer and published on 24 February in Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin). Physikalisch-Mathematische Klasse. Sitzungsberichte (1927), pp.2-13.

Hermann Weyl (1885-1955), mentioned in the last lines of the letter, had been a sometime colleague of Einstein's at Zürich, and was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. In 1933 he left for America where he occupied one of the first faculty positions at the newly-formed Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

LITERATURE:

The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 15: The Berlin Years: Writings & Correspondence, June 1925-May 1927, edd. Diana K. Buchwald, József Illy, A. J. Kox and Dennis Lehmkuhl, pp.732 (nos. 443. and 468)