Albert Einstein to Hedi and Max Born

Translated by Irene Born Newton-John; closing comment by Max Born.¹

This letter antedates by a year or two the "new" quantum mechanics of Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, Pasqual Jordan, and Erwin Schrödinger. Einstein begins with a response to a letter about Japan by Born's wife, Hedi—a letter that has since been lost. But then, as he would for the next 30 years, Einstein launches into his differences with Max on the interpretation of quantum phenomena. If atomic phenomena are truly random, he grumbles, he'd rather be a croupier.

Berlin, 29 April 1924

Dear Borns,

Your letter, dear Mrs. Born, was really excellent. Indeed, what causes the sense of well-being inspired by Japanese society and art is that the individual is so harmoniously integrated into his wider environment that he derives his experiences not from the self, but mainly from the community. Each of us longed for this when we were young, but we had to resign ourselves to its impossibility. For, of all the communities available to us there is not one I would want to devote myself to, except for the society of the true searchers, which has very few living members at any time.

. . . Bohr's opinion about radiation is of great interest. But I should not want to be forced into abandoning strict causality without defending it more strongly than I have so far. I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose, of its own free will, not only its moment to jump off, but also its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist. Certainly my attempts to give tangible form to the quanta have foundered again and again, but I am far from giving up hope. And even if it never works, there is always that consolation that this lack of success is entirely mine.

. . . With best wishes.

Yours

Einstein

. . . Your pretty remark [Mrs. Born, about subject unknown] makes me want to stroke your head, if that is at all permissible in the case of a married lady.

Max Born's 1969 comments:¹ The letter from my wife to which Einstein replied is missing. The basic reason for the dispute between [Einstein and me] on the validity of statistical laws was as follows: Einstein was firmly convinced that physics can supply us with knowledge of the objectively existing world. Together with many other physicists, I have been gradually converted, as a result of experiences in the field of atomic quantum phenomena, to the point of view that this is not so. At any given moment, our knowledge of the objective world is only a crude approximation from which, by applying certain rules such as the probability laws of quantum mechanics, we can predict unknown (e.g. future) conditions.

Reference

1. 1. M. Born, The Born–Einstein Letters 1916–1955: Friendship, Politics and Physics in Uncertain Times, Macmillan, New York (2005), p. 79. Letter © Hebrew University of Jerusalem.