Marvelous correspondence archive of physicist Marcus Campbell Goodall, containing ten letters addressed to him by six illustrious researchers from the ‘atomic age,’ including Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrodinger, the acclaimed mathematician and polymath John von Neumann, mathematician and philosopher Norbert Wiener, renowned geometer W. V. D. Hodge, Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, and five letters from physicist and nuclear fission theorist Otto Robert Frisch. Covering a five-year window between July 1945 and July 1950, the bulk of the letters relate to Goodall’s educational pursuits, namely that of securing a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. The letters, in chronological order, are as follows:
TLS from Erwin Schrodinger, one page, both sides, 8 x 10.25, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Theoretical Physics, July 25, 1945, in part: “Thank you for your letter of 19. July. From the accompanying letter of Dr. Frohlich I gather, that you wish to apply for a scholarship at the Institute. You would have to make an application to the Board of the above School, whose next meeting is scheduled for early in October. Soon after that you would be intimated the decision. This would, in your case, depend mainly on the following. Send, addressed to me, some substantial part of the work you have done hitherto; 6 or 8 pages suffice, but it must be easily legible and understandable even to a theoretician who does not yet know a lot about it. If elliptic function theorems are involved in the work, they must be explained (I don’t mean proved!), since a physicist of today does not as a rule know much about them. I will judge from this little expose, whether I believe that your working at our School may serve a usefull purpose. The Board is likely to endorse my advice. Otherwise not much formality, just say in the application everything about yourself as regards curriculum and academic standing. Add testimonials if you like.” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
TLS from Otto Robert Frisch, one page, 8 x 10, University of Cambridge, Department of Physics, October 11, 1948, in full: “I tried to read your paper, but found it far too technical. I have now shown it to Dirac, and he promised to look it over. In my view he is about the only person likely to understand it. Would it not be possible for you to write a much shorter statement of your results by ruthlessly cutting out everything which is not absolutely essential for the main trend of thought, and expanding what is left into something approaching general understandability? Otherwise your work may suffer the fate of the neutrino, remaining undetected through lack of interaction with the rest of the universe. I shall let you know as soon as I get your paper back from Dirac, and I should then be in a better position to suggest ways of obtaining assistance.”
TLS from Otto Robert Frisch, one page, 8 x 10, University of Cambridge, Department of Physics, October 25, 1948, in part: “I have shown your revised paper to Dirac, but he is still reluctant to plough through all the mathematics. On the other hand, he feels that in order to make a good case for a Fellowship, one small concrete result is more important than all the methodical advances in the world. He therefore suggests that you should pick the chain of argument which leads to your derivation of the fine structure constant, and present that particular chain with an absolute minimum of other matter. I realize that this is not in the line of work as you have planned it, but it may not represent such a very large amount of work to you, and if you can make a reasonably convincing case for this one result, that would improve your position enormously. In the meantime, the only other suitable person to referee your paper as a whole still seems to be von Neumann. It would obviously not be possible to get his consent by October 31st, so I can only suggest you risk it and put his name down without asking him. I know him quite well, and I think he wouldn’t mind if I did that. I may see some of our mathematicians to-day or to-morrow, and might thus be able to suggest another referee.”
TLS from Otto Robert Frisch, one page, 8 x 10, University of Cambridge, Department of Physics, October 27, 1948, in full: “I have shown your manuscript to Professor Hodge here, and he again suggested von Neumann as the most suitable referee, and M. H. A. Newman (Manchester) as the most suitable person in this country. I have therefore put these two names as suggested referees on your application form, and forwarded it to the Royal Society together with a short supporting letter of my own. I have also written to von Neumann explaining why we have put him down as a referee without first asking his consent, and Hodge has promised to write to Newman in the same way. I hope you agree to all this. I do not think there is any need for you to come to Cambridge this week. Shall I send one of your manuscripts (or both) to von Neumann? Will you be able to spare a second copy of at least one of them for Newman? Or should I send the more recent version to Newman, and trust von Neumann to understand the first, and presumably more difficult, version? Please let me know.”
TLS from Otto Robert Frisch, one page, 8 x 10, University of Cambridge, Department of Physics, November 8, 1948, in full: “I had a reply from Professor Newman, of Manchester, saying that he was not well and could not act as a referee. He suggested Professor Rosenfeld instead, also of Manchester. I have had a note from Professor Rosenfeld, saying that he is willing to take it on, so, if you have your second copy ready, I suggest you send it directly to Professor L. Rosenfeld, Physics Department, the University of Manchester, Manchester 13. Have you considered Dirac’s suggestion of presenting the derivation of 137 by itself?” Frisch adds a short handwritten postscript to the conclusion.
TLS from Otto Robert Frisch, one page, 8 x 10, University of Cambridge, Department of Physics, February 16, 1949, in part: “From the enquiries I had made, it appears that a Leverhulme Research Fellowship should be a reasonable chance for you. The application must be in by the end of February, so there is not much time to lose. The enclosed sheaf of papers will tell you all I know. When I saw you last, you were preparing a new version of your paper. Has that been completed? I suggest you send a copy to von Neumann as soon as possible, and one to me if you can spare one. I suggest you mention von Neumann and myself as referees, and I think you might include Hodge, who was favourably impressed when I showed him your paper. In filling in the application I would urge you to be verbose. Brevity, to which you are inclined, is easily mistaken for arrogance. So tell them all about your early life and why you didn’t take a degree, what you did for the fatherland during the war, and in as plain and detailed terms as possible, what the research is you want the money for. Remember the assessors are human, and you have to be human to make an impression on them.”
TLS from John von Neumann, one page, 8.25 x 10.75, University of California, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, June 23, 1949, in part: “I am exceedingly glad to learn that you have obtained a Leverhulme fellowship and that you plan to come to Princeton in connection with this fellowship. I will be very glad to see you in Princeton. As you know I am somewhat tied up in various types of work, and I cannot devote as much time as I would like to fundamental problems in Quantum Theory with which you are concerned. I will, however, do my best to follow your work and to give you any help I can. I infer from your inquiry that you will want to apply for a membership at the Institute for Advanced Study. If this is the case I would suggest that you write the Secretary of the School of Mathematics with as little delay as possible. The admissions are made by the Direction on the recommendation of the school that is concerned. I will have an application blank sent to you from Princeton. I would suggest that in connection with your application you mention that you come with the Leverhulme fellowship, that you indicate the part mathematical, part quantum theoretical character of your work and that you mention your previous discussions with me. It will also be desirable, for administrative purposes, to have a letter of recommendation from Professor Frisch.” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
TLS from Norbert Wiener, one page, 8.5 x 11, National Institute of Cardiology of Mexico, January 16, 1950, in part: “I am very much interested in getting in touch with you. I shall be back in the States in about 10 days, and shall be in Morristown, New Jersey in little more than two weeks…I am much interested in the new relativistic quantum developments about which I know nothing, because they seem to me to contain at least a suggestion that the particles opposite to those familiar in physics, may in a certain sense be opposite in their time orientation to the ordinary particles. This may purely be phantasm, but if it is phantasm, I should like to see it demolished in competent hands.” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
ALS from W. V. D. Hodge, one page, 8.5 x 11, Harvard University, Department of Mathematics, May 23, 1950, in part: “Thank you for your letter of May 18, which I found waiting for me on my return to Harvard. I should like to discuss with you some time the application of Hermitian and Kehler metrics to the Lie groups. Unfortunately, at the moment, I know too little about the group to say anything about them but whenever I find time—not for a little yet, I fear—I should like to look into the problem. In my book ‘Harmonic Integrals’ I applied the idea of a harmonic integral to the main classes of groups, but I feel now that the treatment could be much improved, and it is possible that I might be able to include the exceptional groups…I shall be here for three or four weeks yet, after which I shall probably be travelling about, but I shall return for the Congress, which no doubt you will also be attending, and we may be able to discuss the matter then.”
ALS from Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, one page, 8.25 x 11, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, postmarked July 2, 1950, in full: “I was glad to hear from you. Will you let me know the result of your talk with John von Neumann: whether you stay at Princeton or are available. I very much want to have you here and work with you. In case you are free I will at once get in touch with the Navy and try to get a contract. It is a slow job and it is doubtful whether I can get that contract but I will do my best.” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope. In overall fine condition. Accompanied by a two-page copy of one of Goodall's highly technical research papers.
Marcus Campbell Goodall (1914-1998) attended Balliol College, Oxford, but was dismissed before receiving his degree for some mischief involving an automobile. During World War II, he was summoned into service as an experimental officer to the British Admiralty Signals Establishment in the scientific and technical pools at Royal Fort, Bristol. Following the war, he joined the research staff of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in Essex where he authored two manuscripts, one entitled "New Foundations of Physical Field Theory" and the other "P-adic Statistics and Elementary Particles." Both papers were rejected by the Physical Review and Reviews of Modern Physics for the same reasons that Einstein and Born gave. Goodall continued his work at several American universities and authored two books and numerous papers. A remarkable archive of scientific correspondence.
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