Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Original Einstein Manuscript Discovered

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the not-so-theoretical-manuscript dept.

vinlud writes "The original manuscript of a paper Albert Einstein published in 1925 has been found in the archives of Leiden University's Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics. The German-language manuscript is titled "Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas," and is dated December 1924. It is considered one of Einstein's last great breakthroughs. High-resolution photographs of the 16-page manuscript are posted on the institute's web site."

4 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. Coral Cache Link by Dubpal · · Score: 5, Informative
    Because we all know "High-resolution photographs of the 16-page manuscript are posted on the institute's web site" usually means said website is about to become very uncooperative.

    http://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl.nyud.net:8090/his tory/Einstein_archive/

    --
    If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
    - George Orwell
  2. Re:Amazing by EvanED · · Score: 5, Informative

    Um, you're missing the point. The text of the paper has been available for some time. They didn't discover a NEW paper, just the original of one of them.

    And as such, an image of what Einstien actually wrote is the ONLY way to present it in a way that hasn't been available before.

  3. Re:Article in full by jeronimoe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ha! You're right. At first I thought it was fine, but then I finally got through to the real article -- there are quite a few modifications. Unfair for those who can't compare with the real one. Here's the real article in full.

    Original Einstein Manuscript Discovered

    By TOBY STERLING
    Associated Press Writer

    The original manuscript of a paper Albert Einstein published in 1926 has been found in the archives of Leiden University's Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, scholars said Saturday.

    The handwritten manuscript titled "Quantum theory of the diatomic ideal gas" was dated December 1925. Considered one of Einstein's last great breakthroughs, it was published in the proceedings of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow in January 1926.

    High-resolution photographs of the 160-page, German-language manuscript and an account of its discovery were posted on the institute's Web site.

    "It was quite amazing" when a student working on his master's thesis uncovered the delicate manuscript written in Einstein's distinctive scrawl, said professor Carlos Beenakker. "You can even see Einstein's thumbprints in some places, and it's full of notes in the margins and underlining from his editor."

    "We're going to keep it as a reminder of his work here, which is quite a pleasurable memory for us," Beenakker said.

    The German-born physicist, who was Jewish and part Gypsy, taught in Berlin between 1910 and 1933, fleeing to the United States after Adolf Hitler came to power.

    Einstein, whose name is now synonymous with science, was a frequent guest lecturer at Laden in the 1920s due to his friendship with physicist Paul Oppenheimer, among whose papers the manuscript was found.

    The paper predicted that at temperatures near absolute zero - around 560 degrees below zero - particles in a gas can reach a state of such low energy that they clump together in one larger pair, a "di-atom."

    The idea was developed in collaboration with Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Boshe and the then-theoretical state of matter was dubbed a Bose-Einstein condensation.

    In 1985, University of Colorado at Boulder scientists Eric Cornell and Carlos Wiemann created such a condensation using a gas of the element rubidium and were awarded the Nobel peace prize for physics in 2000, together with Wolfgang Amadeus Ketterle of the Californian Institute of Technology.

    Beenakker said the student who found the manuscript, Rowdy Boeyink, was painfully reviewing documents in the archive for a thesis on Oppenheimer when he came across the Einstein paper and immediately recognized its importance.

    He said Boeyink had found other interesting documents during his search, including a letter from Dutch physicist Niels Bohr, and was all but certain to receive top marks on his thesis.

  4. Re:Other than by nathanh · · Score: 5, Informative
    No, these were simply the two options asfaik seen at the time as solutions which are likely to lead to the desired result. I

    The military commanders weren't even consulted before the bomb was dropped.

    "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

    Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

    Eisenhower recommended against dropping the bomb.

    "During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

    - Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

    Admiral Lehay opposed the bombings, stating that they achieved nothing.

    "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

    - William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.

    The vice chairman of US bombing survey said that the a-bombs were not necessary.

    "While I was working on the new plan of air attack... (I) concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945."

    Paul Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pg. 36-37 (my emphasis)

    However the most damning evidence came from the Director of Naval Intelligence.

    "Just when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia.

    "Washington decided that Japan had been given its chance and now it was time to use the A-bomb.

    "I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds."

    Ellis Zacharias, How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look, 6/6/50, pg. 19-21.

    Ellis makes it clear beyond reasonable dispute that the a-bombs were dropped for POLITICAL reasons, not MILITARY reasons.

    These repeated restrospective justifications that the a-bombs were dropped to "save lives" are lies. They are lies that you wish to believe because otherwise you might have to face up to the reality that sometimes the USA has done evil things. It's better to accept that the USA is fallible - just like every other democracy - and admit that the a-bombs were a MISTAKE.

    PS: all credit goes to DABANSHEE for the research.