Autograph letter signed (with initials, 'A.E.') to Cornelius Lanczos, n.p., 19 September 1953

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Autograph letter signed (with initials, 'A.E.') to Cornelius Lanczos, n.p., 19 September 1953
In German. 1½ pages, 280 x 216mm, including ten scientific formulas or equations. Provenance: Sotheby's, 26 November 1980, lot 168.

'We know so much and grasp so little!'. Einstein is delighted to hear of Lanczos's move to Dublin (where he had taken over from Erwin Schrödinger at the School of Theoretical Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), given his discomfort with the atmosphere in America since the outbreak of the Korean War: 'Precisely because it [Ireland] is a rather idiosyncratic little country under strict Catholic control, a classical saying of H.A. Lorentz comes to my mind, to the effect that "I am lucky to belong to a nation which is too small to commit great follies"'. Lanczos had apparently expressed a concern about his 'intellectual limitations', to which Einstein replies reassuringly that he need not worry, 'especially as even the most anointed leaders have to admit that they are groping about hopelessly in the dark. The wise men of the 19th century dreamt of nothing of this sort. We know so much and grasp so little! Certainly four-dimensionality with +++- belongs to the latter camp ...'. Einstein goes on to a 'funny comment' about 'my discrepancy with Schrödinger over the theory of the non-symmetrical field. The question is whether it is reasonable to base the theory solely on the Γ, without starting from a tensor-field. The [square root of] R_ik as a varying function has always repelled me, especially as it directly links the gravitational equations (without a cosmological term)'. He however sketches out the mathematical basis on which one can bypass this difficulty, by introducing R_ik = 0 as a secondary condition for the Γ-field, which concludes by leading to his own formulation of the theory, 'by which the field G^ik comes back in by the Lagrangian back door'. Einstein ends the letter with greetings to both Lanczos and Schrödinger.