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BOHR, Niels. Autograph letter signed ("N. Bohr") to Samuel A. Goudsmit (1902-1978), Copenhagen, 28 December 1932. 2 pages, 4o on one sheet of the Universitetets Institut for Teoretisk Fysik stationery.
"IN A PAPER TO APPEAR SHORTLY WE HAVE BEEN ABLE... TO PROVE A COMPLETE HARMONY BETWEEN THE MEASURABILITY AND THE EXCHANGE RULES OF THE QUANTUM-ELECTRO-MAGNETIC FORMALISM."
Superb autograph letter planning a lecture series in Goudsmit's physics department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and discussing his work in progress in detail. Goudsmit was the co-discoverer of electron spin. The work which Bohr describes in this letter includes his most important contributions to quantum electro-dynamics.
In continuation of my studies of these problems I have this autumn, in collaboration with [Leon] Rosenfeld, been occupied with a detailed investigation of the mesaurability of electric and magnetic forces, which as you know, has given rise to much discussion and many paradoxies [sic]. In a paper to appear shortly we have been able, however, to prove a complete harmony between the measurability and the exchange rules of the quantum electro-magnetic formalism. The result, of course, is quite independent of the fundamental difficultes of relativistic quantum mechanics. Not least in "connection with the latter difficulties we have all been very interested in the problem of nuclear constitution and the possible clue to this problem offered by the discovery of the neutron. Still I quite agree with you as regards the very preliminary character of any attempt hitherto made to attack the problem on such lines. . . .
The famous paper to which Bohr alludes is cited by Leon Rosenfeld in his D.S.B. article on Bohr as "Zur Frage der messbarkeit der elektromagnetischen Feldgroessen, Det. Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, matematisk-fysiske Meddelelser, 12, no. 8 (1933). This work, on which Rosenfeld and Bohr collaborated from 1931-33, and which appeared in April of 1933, remains one of Bohr's most significant works. Pais states that this paper was so difficult for Bohr to write that it underwent no less than 14 successive sets of proofs while Bohr attempted to express his ideas in a satisfactory form.
At the end of his letter Bohr refers to possible clues "to problems of nuclear constitution offered by the discovery of the neutron." This discovery was made by James Chadwick in February 1932. At this early date its implications were just beginning to be perceived by Bohr and others.
"IN A PAPER TO APPEAR SHORTLY WE HAVE BEEN ABLE... TO PROVE A COMPLETE HARMONY BETWEEN THE MEASURABILITY AND THE EXCHANGE RULES OF THE QUANTUM-ELECTRO-MAGNETIC FORMALISM."
Superb autograph letter planning a lecture series in Goudsmit's physics department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and discussing his work in progress in detail. Goudsmit was the co-discoverer of electron spin. The work which Bohr describes in this letter includes his most important contributions to quantum electro-dynamics.
In continuation of my studies of these problems I have this autumn, in collaboration with [Leon] Rosenfeld, been occupied with a detailed investigation of the mesaurability of electric and magnetic forces, which as you know, has given rise to much discussion and many paradoxies [sic]. In a paper to appear shortly we have been able, however, to prove a complete harmony between the measurability and the exchange rules of the quantum electro-magnetic formalism. The result, of course, is quite independent of the fundamental difficultes of relativistic quantum mechanics. Not least in "connection with the latter difficulties we have all been very interested in the problem of nuclear constitution and the possible clue to this problem offered by the discovery of the neutron. Still I quite agree with you as regards the very preliminary character of any attempt hitherto made to attack the problem on such lines. . . .
The famous paper to which Bohr alludes is cited by Leon Rosenfeld in his D.S.B. article on Bohr as "Zur Frage der messbarkeit der elektromagnetischen Feldgroessen, Det. Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, matematisk-fysiske Meddelelser, 12, no. 8 (1933). This work, on which Rosenfeld and Bohr collaborated from 1931-33, and which appeared in April of 1933, remains one of Bohr's most significant works. Pais states that this paper was so difficult for Bohr to write that it underwent no less than 14 successive sets of proofs while Bohr attempted to express his ideas in a satisfactory form.
At the end of his letter Bohr refers to possible clues "to problems of nuclear constitution offered by the discovery of the neutron." This discovery was made by James Chadwick in February 1932. At this early date its implications were just beginning to be perceived by Bohr and others.