Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961).

Autograph letter signed ('E. Schrödinger') to [Wilhelm Wien], Villa Herwig, Arosa, Switzerland, 27 December 1925.

In German. Six pages, 269 x 215mm. Provenance: by descent from Wilhelm Wien.

Schrödinger grasping at 'a new atomic theory'. ‘Just now a new atomic theory is niggling me. If only I knew more mathematics! I am very optimistic about this thing and hope that if only I can master the calculations, it will be very fine. I think I can provide a vibrational system [ein schwingendes System] in comparatively natural ways, not through ad hoc assumptions’, concentrating particularly on the natural frequencies of hydrogen. He provides the mathematical definitions he is working on: ‘These frequencies are very high against the optical and also against the X-ray frequencies, so have only very small relative differences from each other’; in three further sets of equations, he shows how this provides ‘a real beat frequency’ [Schwebungsfrequenz]. He concludes, ‘I hope that I will soon be able to report on the thing in a more detailed and comprehensible way’, once he has cracked the mathematical challenges.

The letter opens with an attempt to clear up a misunderstanding prompted by the Russian physicist V.A. Fock, concerning Schrödinger’s intended contribution of an article on colour theory for Wien’s Handbuch der Experimentalphysik (1926): Rudolf Tomaschek should have taken his place, but Schrödinger was astonished to discover from Edgar Meyer that there was an objection to Tomaschek ‘as a student of [Philipp] Lenard because of their antagonism towards Einstein’. Schrödinger also discusses a small conference of southern German physicists in Carlsruhe, where it appears that physicists from Munich [where Wien was based] are unrepresented; and mentions the fact that for various reasons he has submitted his last three papers not to the Annalen der Physik (of which Wien was the editor) but to other journals.

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