Abstract
In November, 1925, Frenkel goes to Berlin and spends almost a year in Germany, France and England. His letters to his parents1 form the basis of this chapter.
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Notes
His correspondence with his wife seems to be lost.
A.F. Ioffe wrote from Berlin: «Yesterday I was here at a colloquium, where Frenkel’s paper on metals was presented and very much praised (especially by Einstein)» (cit. by: M.S. Sominsky «A.F. Ioffe», p. 470 (in Russian)).
«Evening Red Gazette.»
J.I. Frenkel. Memoirs, Letters, Documents. Leningrad: Nauka, 1986, p. 336 (in Russian).
Probably, one of the conversations of Einstein with J.I. himself is implied.
Encyclopedic dictionary «Granat», v. 51, p. 151.
We have described this article earlier (see Ch. 2).
G. Wentzel later became distinguished through his studies in quantum electrodynamics.
Frenkel speaks here about the paper on the electron spin («Electrodynamics of a rotating electron»). It was finished in Nice in April, 1926, and ended with acknowledgements to Pauli and Langevin.
Leon Brillouin, French physicist, theoretician, who worked in the field of solid state quantum physics (the bands in the energy spectrum of solids are known under his name), information theory, etc. In 1941 he emigrated to the USA.
S.I. Metal’nikov was a biologist, lecturing in Tavricheskiy University (in the Crimea) from 1918–20, and then emigrated to France. He worked at the Pasteur Institute.
An extremely flattering presentation marking the title of professor was composed by a committee of A.F. Ioffe, Yu.A. Krutkov and V.R. Bursian after J.I. had departed to Germany (See Archives of the A.F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, personal file # 548, pp. 6-12 (in Russian)).
The paper about the Faraday effect (i.e., about the rotation of the light polarization plane in the magnetic field).
See the letter of January 24, 1926.
Scientific-astrological advice.
Viktor Nikolaevich and Yelena Ivanovna.
P. Debye is a famous physicist, the author of classical papers on the thermal capacity theory, electrolyte theory, etc.
A zoo in Hamburg founded by K. Hagenbeck.
«On the theory of the elasticity limit and the strength of crystal bodies» (Zeitschrift für Physik, Bd. 37, S. 572, 1926).
About a rotating electron.
In a postcard from Paris, of March 20, 1926, J.I. wrote: «This morning I was honoured to be promoted into the company of Einstein, Langevin, and Mme Curie at her institute, and even gave them a brief account of my latest paper».
O.A. Starosel’skaya-Nikitina. Paul Langevin. Fizmatgiz, Moscow, 1962, p. 169, (in Russian).
This excerpt from the G. Claude speech may be found in the op. cit. of O.A. Starosel’skaya-Nikitina.
Vestnik Akad. Nauk SSSR, # 5, pp. 44–45, 1947 (in Russian).
Yu. Rumer. Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk, v. 78, 1962, p. 695 (in Russian).
«King’s road» (Lat).
See footnote 25.
M. Born. Jacov Frenkel. Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk, 1962, v. 76, # 3, p. 431 (in Russian). See also: J.L Frenkel. Memoirs, Letters, Documents. Leningrad: Nauka, 1986, p. 76 (in Russian).
In Zoppot (Sopot), a resort town on the North Sea coast, J.I. lived in 1913.
Meaning: «Towers of Bismark» or «Stones of Bismark».
Hund is German for «dog».
Among them, in particular, was R. Oppenheimer.
A privy councillor in Germany.
Fraternities (German).
Duel (German).
«Soviet Physics Successes».
One such animate subject, says Kapitza who remembers this evening very well, was a policeman met by the company.
This photo is reproduced in: «A.F. Ioffe. Meetings with physicists». Moscow, Fizmatgiz, 1960, p. 76 (in Russian).
All the persons mentioned worked at the State Physical-Technical Röntgen Institute (later simply Physical-Technical Institute) in Leningrad.
«But, gentlemen, that is not physics».
J.I. seems to be speaking here about the probability interpretation of the wavefunction.
Tat’yana Alekseevna Afanas’eva-Ehrenfest.
Nataliya Nikolaevna Semenova, the wife of N.N. Semenov.
The State Publishing House (abbreviation in Russian).
Scientific Editor of the State Publishing House.
LE. Tamm. Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk, 1962, v. 76., # 3, p. 411 (in Russian).
J.I. Frenkel. Lehrbuch der Electrodynamik, Bd. I, S. VIL Berlin, 1926. (in German).
Ph. Frank. Scientia, v. 25, p. 192, 1931. Philipp Frank, Einstein’s successor at the Chair of Prague University, a famous physicist-encyclopaedician who, along with R. Mises, published a book which was well-known in the thirties: «Differential and Integral Equations of Mathematical Physics».
«Nature», v. 19, # 3006, p. 851, 1927.
I.E. Tamm. In: J.I. Frenkel. Electrodynamics. Collection of Selected Papers, v. I. Acad. of Sci. of the USSR Publ. Moscow-Leningrad, 1956, p. 3 (in Russian). See also: B.G. Kuznetsov. The Evolution of Electrodynamics. Acad. of Sci. of the USSR Publ. Moscow, 1963, pp. 129-132 (in Russian).
I.K. Kikoin. In: J.I. Frenkel. Memories, Letters, Documents. Leningrad: Nauka, 1986, p. 66 (in Russian).
Theoretical Physics of the XXth Century. IL, Moscow, 1962 (in Russian). See also: V.J. Frenkel. Paul Ehrenfest (2nd edition). Moscow: Atomizdat, 1977, pp. 137–145 (in Russian).
P. Ehrenfest. Collected Scientific Papers. Amsterdam, 1959, p. 478.
J.I. means a representation of the rotating sphere as a set of currents running in the planes perpendicular to the rotation axis.
ZhRFKhO, phys. ser., v. 50, 4-6, p. 143, 1919 (in Russian).
On the other hand, one also cannot avoid noticing a characteristic discrepancy here. In 1925 J.I. intensively studied the electrodynamics of point electrons (ZRHFO, phys. ser., v. 7, 3-4, p. 393, 1925; Zeitschrift für Physik, Bd. 32, S. 516, 1925). On February 23, 1926, he wrote to Ya.I. Perel’man: «No matter how disgusting the thought of an extended electron is to me, the hypothesis of a rotating electron explains the anomalous Zeeman effect in such an easy and natural way, as well as the similarity between X-ray and optical doublets, nonmagnetism of helium and other noble elements, that I’m starting to believe in it.» (See: Archive of the USSR Ac. of Sci., f. 796, file 3, # 18).
Ya.A. Smorodinskii and I.E. Tamm in: J.I. Frenkel. «Collection of Selected Papers», v. 2, Leningrad-Moscow: 1958. AN SSSR publ, pp. 455–456 (in Russian).
J.I. here means Philipp Frank who often visited Göttingen and was there in the autumn of 1926.
A priority right for a topic was defended not only by Göttingen physicists. This may be illustrated by the example of the famous American chemist M. Gomberg, who discovered free radicals. He concluded one of his papers («Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft», Bd. 33, S. 3163, 1900) with the following words: «The investigation will be continued, and I would like to ask that this field be left to me for the time being.» It really is a polite form of something like: «I will continue to work here and do not want anybody to interfere.»
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Frenkel, V.Y. (1996). In Germany. In: Yakov Ilich Frenkel. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8490-7_3
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