Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

Autograph letter signed (‘A. Einstein‘) to Professor Georg Lockemann, n.p., 19 June 1919.

In German. One page, 274 x 222mm (general uneven browning caused by old mount). Provenance: by descent from Georg Lockemann.

The origins of special relativity in the ‘ether question’. Einstein suggests that the current state of the ‘ether question’ can best be understood if one considers it historically. Before Maxwell, it was an ‘all-pervading inert substance’, with its ‘transverse waves’ manifesting themselves as light. Then Maxwell and his circle ‘made long and unsuccessful attempts at a mechanical interpretation of Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations. Under the pressure of this failure, people were accustomed to consider electromagnetic fields as states of the ether, whilst refraining from a mechanical analysis of these states. Then came the question about the state of motion of the ether relative to matter; the special theory of relativity is based on the recognition that there can be no question of such a state of motion … In the circumstances, it seems much better to drop the whole concept and speak more now of electromagnetic and gravitational fields, but not interpreting them as states of something else’.

Apparently unpublished: not in the Collected Papers. Georg Lockemann (1871-1959) was head of the chemistry department at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin from 1907 until his retirement in 1945.

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