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SCHRÖDINGER, Erwin. Autograph letter signed ("E. Schrödinger") to Rolf Hosemann (b. 1912), Dublin, 16 January 1955. 2 pages, 4o, in German, on one sheet of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Theoretical Physics stationery, sheet creased where previously folded and left margin punched with holes, affecting one letter. With translation.
Schrödinger's response to Rolf Hosemann, Max von Laue's chief assistant at the Fritz-Haber-Institut, who had earlier sent him the manuscript of his "Lorentz-invariant deduction of Hamiltonian mechanics, Maxwellian electrodynamics and Schrödinger wave mechanics from the so-called general wave equation. Clarification of the waveparticle dualism." Schrödinger's analysis of the paper's weaknesses touches on some key points in his own scientific thought, most particularly his dislike of wave-particle duality, as can be seen in the second paragraph:
"What does it mean 'that there is a non-zero action quantum [Planck's contant]'? What does it mean that it 'is at least energetically possible' to reconcile the wave theory and the point concept? How did Einstein, or even I, demonstrate this? Excuse me, but how can one state so indecisively that 'wave equation only exists... for discrete energy values'? It will not be easy for a good many people to guess what 'mysterious' properties of wave function you refer to if not those obtained by an operator in the so-called second quantization..."
"Now, however, you want to have waves and corpuscles and determinacy. That is a bit much. I am thoroughly convinced that even the first 'and' is to much. This has often been and still is attempted by the smartest people. If you have a new idea regarding this, then one would expect that it could be described without such an outrageously intricate preamble."
Schrödinger wrote his letter to Hosemann from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where he had been director of the School of Theoretical Physics since its foundation in 1939.
Schrödinger's response to Rolf Hosemann, Max von Laue's chief assistant at the Fritz-Haber-Institut, who had earlier sent him the manuscript of his "Lorentz-invariant deduction of Hamiltonian mechanics, Maxwellian electrodynamics and Schrödinger wave mechanics from the so-called general wave equation. Clarification of the waveparticle dualism." Schrödinger's analysis of the paper's weaknesses touches on some key points in his own scientific thought, most particularly his dislike of wave-particle duality, as can be seen in the second paragraph:
"What does it mean 'that there is a non-zero action quantum [Planck's contant]'? What does it mean that it 'is at least energetically possible' to reconcile the wave theory and the point concept? How did Einstein, or even I, demonstrate this? Excuse me, but how can one state so indecisively that 'wave equation only exists... for discrete energy values'? It will not be easy for a good many people to guess what 'mysterious' properties of wave function you refer to if not those obtained by an operator in the so-called second quantization..."
"Now, however, you want to have waves and corpuscles and determinacy. That is a bit much. I am thoroughly convinced that even the first 'and' is to much. This has often been and still is attempted by the smartest people. If you have a new idea regarding this, then one would expect that it could be described without such an outrageously intricate preamble."
Schrödinger wrote his letter to Hosemann from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where he had been director of the School of Theoretical Physics since its foundation in 1939.