Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

Autograph letter signed (‘A. Einstein’) to Hugo Bergmann, Princeton, 14 December 1936.

In German. One page, 278 x 217mm (curved stain at lower right margin). Provenance: by descent from Hugo Bergmann.

On the primacy of theoretical over experimental physics. Einstein is delighted to hear that Bergmann has been re-elected as rector [of the Hebrew University]. Einstein has been discussing the university with his colleague E.P. Wigner, who tells him that there is some hesitation about whether to appoint a theoretician or an experimentalist to the first chair of physics: ‘I am necessarily in favour of the appointment of a theoretician, and indeed believe that it would be an error not to begin the faculty with theory. This is 1. cheaper, 2. much better represented amongst us Jews and 3. absolutely necessary for the development of experiments especially in such an isolated place, particularly since there are very good experimentalists there. He recommends that Fritz London be offered the post, but failing that, he nevertheless emphasises that ‘it should in any case be one of our young theoreticians’.

The recipient, Hugo Bergmann, was the first rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, between 1935 and 1938.

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