Gatow, near Berlin, 5 January 1929

Living the life of a hermit, immersed in his scientific work.

On his working methods, and a new paper on unified field theory: 'These days I settle from time to time for a few weeks in a country property all alone in an apartment and cook for myself – like the old hermits. Then one notices with great astonishment how very long the day is and how superfluous are the greater part of the activities of work and leisure to which one is harnessed the rest of the time ... The best of it, on which I have been brooding and calculating almost all of my days and half of the nights, is now finished in front of me and condensed into 7 pages under the name of "Unified Field Theory". In appearance it is a bit antiquated and my dear colleagues as well as you, dear friend, will at first stick out your tongues at it, as far as they go. For in these equations there is no sign of Planck's h. But when they have really reached the limits of the possibilities of their statistical mania, they will return repenting to a space-time representation, and then these equations will represent a point of departure': he gives further details of this new approach, concluding humorously 'If you don't stick your tongue out at it, you're a hypocrite'. On other matters, Einstein mentions that he is reading with great enjoyment and admiration G.B. Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism; his health is getting slowly better, although he nearly 'kicked the bucket [ich war nahe am Abkratzen]' the previous year. He also expresses affectionate admiration for his friend's sunny character: 'While most people tend to grow grumpier with the passing years, with you it's exactly the opposite'.

Einstein's new paper on unified field theory was published in Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Physikalisch-mathematische Klasse, 1929, pp.2-7.