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TLS in German, signed “A. Einstein,” one page both sides, 8 x 10, August 16, 1938. Letter to Frantisek Navara, a Czech mathematician and physicist who had developed the concept of a new type of acoustic directional guidance system which he believed could be adapted to torpedoes. In part (translated): "The principle of your discovery is quite ingenious. I foresee however a practical difficulty that seems to me almost impossible to overcome. The primary sonar transmitter will directly affect the sonar receptor through the body of the torpedo, in fact 1000 times more strongly than through the waves reflected from the target. I doubt that it will be possible to precisely counterbalance this direct effect upon the receptors in order to avoid its causing the torpedo to turn…
It would seem possible to me to give up the idea of having the torpedo equipped with its own sonar transmitter and instead to rely exclusively on the acoustic waves in the water that will be sent back by the target itself. However, these will not be strong enough to activate a directional device. One would have to try to utilize the differences in phase as an activating principle. It seems equally questionable whether this can be carried out in practice. In any case, for the time being, I do not consider the outlook for your project to be sufficiently favorable for me to support it." In very good to fine condition, with intersecting folds and light scattered staining.
Written in August 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, Einstein’s letter reflects the intense contemporary interest in applying modern physics and acoustics to military technology. Responding to Navara’s proposed acoustic guidance system for torpedoes, Einstein carefully evaluates the technical obstacles of sonar-based targeting and ultimately declines to endorse the project. The letter is especially evocative given its timing: within a year Europe would be at war, and Einstein himself would soon play an indirect but consequential role in wartime science through his famous 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt concerning the potential military implications of nuclear fission.
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