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ALS in German, signed “A. Einstein,” one page, 5.75 x 8.25, no date [postmarked January 8, 1929]. Handwritten letter to mathematician Herman Müntz concerning Einstein’s theoretical work and asking him to independently verify his calculations. In full (translated): “The more careful consideration of the new theoretical idea shows that it leads to extraordinarily simple and satisfactory conclusions. I am sending you the draft here with the request that you recalculate everything independently (including the numerical factors), especially since I am tired and not at all convinced that there aren't still calculation errors in it. I would also like you to perform the calculation mentioned last, i.e., substituting (9d) into the identities (6) for G_μ_α, which follow from (9a). In the event that one is allowed to set the S_μ_α to zero, the Hamilton function simplifies to the one used by us previously: h = F₁ − F₃
It is interesting that 5 is dimensionally connected with Planck’s h, but this may be a coincidence. — Compatibility is not a problem here at all, because everything follows from Hamilton.” In fine condition, with wear to the left edge. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope addressed in Einstein’s hand to “Dr. H. Müntz” in Nikolassee and postmarked at Berlin-Charlottenburg on January 8, 1929.
Einstein had been corresponding with mathematician Chaim Herman Müntz since 1927, and by 1928 the two were exchanging ideas concerning distant parallelism, or Fernparallelismus, the mathematical framework Einstein was exploring in his attempt to formulate a unified theory of gravitation and electromagnetism. Müntz contributed directly to these investigations, undertaking detailed calculations of the centrally symmetric problem that Einstein acknowledged in his published work. Their collaboration continued during an especially active period in Einstein’s search for a unified field theory, as he pursued the distant-parallelism approach in a series of papers between 1928 and 1931.
The present letter offers a revealing glimpse into their working relationship. Einstein sends Müntz his treatment of a new theoretical idea and asks him to “recalculate everything independently (including the numerical factors),” candidly explaining that he is “tired” and not convinced that his work is free of calculation errors. Einstein then considers a simplification of the Hamilton function before noting an intriguing dimensional relationship to one of the fundamental constants of quantum physics: “It is interesting that 5 is dimensionally connected with Planck’s h, but this may be a coincidence.” The numeral 5 may refer to an equation or quantity in the accompanying theoretical work that Einstein had sent Müntz to check, although the present letter does not define it. Planck’s constant, h, introduced by Max Planck in his work on quantum theory, relates the energy of a quantum to its frequency. Characteristically cautious, Einstein immediately allows that the dimensional correspondence he has noticed may simply be coincidental. He concludes that compatibility presents “no problem here at all, because everything follows from Hamilton.” Hamilton’s principle would become another element of his unified-field investigations later in 1929, as he addressed mathematical concerns raised by Müntz and Cornelius Lanczos.
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