920 NATURE JUNE 15, 1940, VoL 145

l!lecretary of the Organizing Committee ; and Dr. persons who believe that science has within its grasp
Frank B. Jewett, president of the National the capacity to remedy in great part the ills of our
Academy of Sciences, chairman of the Advisory present civilization. We cannot but speculate whether,
in those parts of the world where free inquiry is no
Committee. longer possible, there will not be, at least in so far
The Congress was adjourned with the same note as the things of the mind and the spirit are concerned,
of uneasiness and apprehension with which it had a return to the Dark Ages. What hope is there for
been opened by President Roosevelt. In his fare- future generations in countries where the State by
fiat has declared that all persons must believe glaring
well address, Mr. Sumner Welles said: distortions of the truth ; where evil is declared to be
''You scientists have been free to seek the truth for good ; where falsehood is paraded as the truth ; and
the sake of that truth. You have been free to use where aggression, pure and simple, is represented as
your great powers without hindrance. You have self-defence ? • • •
been free to publish the results of your quiet study "I believe--as firmly as I believe that the sun will
in your laboratories, or your often hazardous observa- rise once more to-morrow-that the present menace
tions, sometimes at the far ends of the earth, without to @ivilization will pass, and that the day will come
fear that because these results might differ from when the now destructive forces of evil which men
accepted concepts, you, and even your families, themselves have created will be vanquished. I
would be subjected to the control and the oppression believe that mankind will again be afforded oppor-
of the State. tunity to lay the foundations of a better world-a
"The suppression in some parts of the world to-day world in which freedom from fear will be established
of the right of free inquiry, and the endeavour to for all mankind and the right of every person to
control the thoughts of men, is therefore of intimate worship God, to think, to speak, to know the truth
concern, not only to all scientists but likewise to all and to search for the truth will be made sure."

CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE FUNDAMENTS

OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS*
BY PROF. A. EINSTEIN, FoR.MEM.R.S.,
INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

W HAT we call physics comprises that group of

natural sciences which base their concepts
we mean by the search for a foundation of the
whole of physics.
on measurements ; and the concepts and pro- It is clear that the word foundation in this
positions of which lend themselves to mathe- connexion does not mean something analogous in
matical formulation. Its realm is accordingly all respects to the foundations of a building.
defined as that part of the sum total of our know- Logically considered, of course, the various single
ledge which is capable of being expressed in laws of physics rest upon this foundation. But
mathematical terms. With the progress of science, whereas a building may be seriously damaged by a
the realm of physics has so expanded that it seems heavy storm or spring flood, and yet its foundations
to be limited only by the limitations of the method remain intact, in science the logical foundation is
itself. The larger part of physical research is always in greater peril from new experiences or
devoted to the development of the various branches new kn<2wledge than are the branch disciplines
of physics, in each of which the object is the with their closer experimental contacts.
theoretical understanding of more or less restricted The first attempt t9 lay a uniform theoretical
fields of experience, and in each of which the laws foundation in physics was the work of Newton.
and concepts remain as closely as possible related In his system everything is reduced to the following
to experience. It is this department of science concepts:
with its ever-growing specialization, which has
revolutionized practical life in the last centuries. (1) Mass points with invariable mass ;
On the other hand, from the very beginning (2) action at a distance between any pair of
there has always been present the attempt to find mass points ;
a unifying theoretical basis for all these single (3) law of motion for the mass point.
sciences, consisting of a minimum of concepts and
There was not, strictly speaking, any all-embracing
fundamental relationships, from which all the
foundation, because an explicit law was formulated
concepts and relationships of the single disciplines
only for the actions-at-a-distance of gravitation ;
might be derived by logical process. This is what
while for other actiorn,-at-a-distance nothing was
• An address, slightly abridged, delivered at the Eighth American
Scientific Congress at Washington on May 15. established a priori except the law of equality of

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 No. 3685, JUNE 15, 1940 NATURE 921

actio and reactio. Moreover, Newton himself fully For us, who took in Faraday's ideas so to speak
realized that time and space were essential elements with our mother's milk, it is hard to appreciate
as physically effective factors of his system, if their greatness and audacity. Faraday must have
only by implication. grasped with unerring instinct the artificial nature
This Newtonian basis proved eminently fruitful of all attempts to refer electromagnetic phenomena
and was regarded as final up to the end of the to actions-at-a-distance between electric particles
nineteenth century. It not only gave results for reacting on each other. All these electric particles
the movements of the heavenly bodies down to together seemed to create in the surrounding space
the most minute details, but also furnished a spatial states, to-day called fields, which he con-
theory of the mechanics of discrete and continuous ceived as states of mechanical stress in a space-
masses, a simple explanation of the principle of filling medium, similar to the states of stress in an
the conservation of energy, and a complete and elastically distended body. For at that time this
brilliant theory of heat. The explanation of the was the only way one could conceive of states
facts of electrodynamics within the Newtonian that were apparently continuously distributed iri
system was more forced ; least convincing of all, space. The peculiar type of mechanical interpre-
from the very beginning, was the theory of light. tation of these fields remained in the background
It is not surprising that Newton would not listen -a sort of placation of the scientific conscience in
to a wave theory of light ; for such a theory was view of the mechanical tradition of Faraday's
most unsuited to his theoretical foundation. The time.
assumption that space was filled with a medium With the help of these new field concepts,
consisting of material points that propagated light Faraday succeeded in forming a qualitative con-
waves without exhibiting any other mechanical cept of the whole complex of electromagnetic
properties must have seemed to him quite arti- effects discovered by him and his predecessors.
ficial. The strongest empirical arguments for the The precise formulation of the time-space laws of
wave nature of light, fixed speeds of propagation, those fields was the work of Maxwell. Imagine
interference, diffraction, polarization, were either his feelings when the differential equations he had
unknown_ or else not known in any well-ordered formulated proved to him that electromagnetic
synthesis. He was justified in sticking to his fields spread in the form of polarized waves and
corpuscular theory of light. During the ninete~nth with the speed of light ! At that thrilling moment
century the dispute was settled in favour of the he surely never guessed that the nature of light,
wave theory. Yet no serious doubt of the mechani- apparently so completely solved, would continue
cal foundation of physics arose, in the first place to baffle succeeding generations. Meantime, it took
because nobody knew where to find a foundation physicists some decades to grasp the full sig-
of another sort. Only slowly, under the irresistible nificance of Maxwell's discovery, so bold was the
pressure of facts, there developed a new foundation leap that his genius forced upon the conceptions of
of field-physics. his fellow-workers. Only after Hertz had demon-
From Newton's time on, the theory of action- strated experimentally the existence of Maxwell's
at-a-distance was constantly found artificial. electromagnetic waves did resistance to the new
Efforts were not lacking to explain gravitation by theory break down.
a kinetic theory, that is, on the basis of collision But if the electromagnetic field could exist as a
forces of hypothetical mass particles. But the wave independent of the material source, then the
attempts were superficial and bore no fruit. The electrostatic interaction could no longer be ex-
strange part played by space (or the inertial system) plained as action-at-a-distance ; and what was
within the mechanical foundation was also clearly true for electrical action could not be denied for
recognized, and criticized with especial clarity by gravitation. Everywhere Newton's actions-at-a-
Ernst Macli. distance gave way to fields spreading with finite
The great change was brought about by Faraday, velocity.
Maxwell and Hertz-as a matter of fact half- Of Newton's foundation there now remained only
unconsciously and against their will. All three of the material mass points subject to the law of
them, throughout their lives, considered them- motion. But J. J. Thomson pointed out that an
selves adherents of the mechanical theory. Hertz electrically charged body in motion must, accord-
had found the simplest form for the equations of ing to Maxwell's theory, possess a magnetic field
the electromagnetic field, and declared that any the energy of which acted pre~isely as does an
theory leading to these equations was Maxwellian increase of kinetic energy to the body. If, then, a
theory. Yet towards the end of his short life he part of kinetic energy consists of field energy,
wrote a paper in which he presented as the foun- might that not then be true of the whole of the
dation of physics a mechanical theory freed from kinetic energy 1 Perhaps the basic property of
the force-concept. matter, its inertia, could be explained within the

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 922 NATURE JUNE 15, 1940, VoL, 145

field theory ? The question led to the problem of ordinates-must govern the transition from one
an interpretation of matter in terms of field theory, inertial system to any other. The content of the
the solution of which would furnish an explanation restricted relativity theory can accordingly be
of the atomic structure of matter. It was soon summarized in one sentence : all natural laws
realized that Maxwell's theory could not accom- must be so conditioned that they are co-variant
plish such a programme. Since then many men of with respect to Lorentz transformations. From
science have zealously sought to complete the field this it follows that the simultaneity of two distant
theory by some generalization that should oom- events is not an invariant concept and that the
prise a theory of matter ; but so far such efforts dimensions of rigid bodies and the speed of clocks
have not been crowned with success. depend upon their state of motion.
For several decades most physicists clung to the A further consequence was a modification of
conviction that a mechanical substructure would Newton's law of motion in cases where the speed
be found for Maxwell's theory. But the unsatis- of a given body was not small compared with the
factory results of their efforts led to gradual accept- speed of light. There followed also the principle
ance of the new field concepts as irreducible funda- of the equivalence of mass and energy, with the
mentals-in other words, physicists resigned laws of conservation of mass and energy becoming
themselves to giving up the idea of a mechanical one and the same. Once it was shown that simul-
foundation. taneity was relative and depended on the frame
Thus physicists held to a field-theory programme. of reference, every possibility of retaining actions-
But it could not be called a foundation, since no- at-a-distance within the foundation of physics dis-
body could tell whether a consistent field theory appeared, since that concept presupposed the
could ever explain on one hand gravitation, on the absolute character of simultaneity (it must be
other hand the elementary components of matter. possible to state the location of the two interacting
In this state of affairs it was necessary to think of mass points "at the same time").
material particles as mass points subject to New- The general theory of relativity owes its origin
ton's laws of motion. This was the procedure of to the attempt to explain a fact known since
Lorentz in creating his electron theory and the Galileo's and Newton's time but hitherto eluding
theory of the electromagnetic phenomena of moving all theoretical interpretation : the inertia and the
bodies. weight of a body, in themselves two entirely
Such was the point at which fundamental con- distinct things, are measured by one and the same
ceptions had arrived at the turn of the century. constant, the mass. From this correspondence
Immense progress was made in the theoretical follows that it is impossible to discover by experi-
penetration and understanding of whole groups of ment whether a given system of co-ordinates is
new _phenomena ; but the establishment of a accelerated, or whether its motion is straight and
unified foundation for physics seemed remote in- uniform, and the observed effects are due to a
deed ; and this state of things has even been gravitational field (this is the equivalence principle
aggravated by subsequent developments. of the general relativity theory). It shatters the
The development during the present century is concepts of the inertial system, as soon as gravita-
characterized by two theoretical systems essen- tion enters in. It may be remarked here that the
tially independent of each other : the theory of inertial system is a weak point of the Galilean-
relativity and the quantum theory. The two Newtonian mechanics. For there is presupposed a
systems do not directly contradict each other ; but mysterious property of physical space, conditioning
they seem little adapted to fusion into one unified the kind of co-ordination systems for which the
theory. law of inertia and the Newtonian law of motion
The theory of relativity arose out of efforts to hold good.
improve, with reference to logical economy, the These difficulties can be avoided by the follow-
foundation of physics as it existed at the turn of ing postulate : natural laws are to be formulated
the century. The so-called special or restricted in such a way that their form is identical for
relativity theory is based on the fact that Max- co-ordinate systems of any kind of states of motion.
well's equations (and thus the law of propagation To accomplish this is the task of the general theory
of light in empty space) are converted into equa- of relativity. On the other hand, we deduce from
tions of the same form , when they undergo the restricted theory the existence of a Riemannian
Lorentz transformation. This formal property of metric within the time-space continuum, which,
the Maxwell equations is supplemented by our according to the equivalence principle, describes
fairly secure empirical knowledge that the laws of both the gravitational field and the metric pro-
physics are the same with respect to all inertial perties of space. Assuming that the field equations
systems. This leads to the result that the Lorentz of gravitation are of the second differentia.I order,
transformation-applied to space and time co- the field law is clearly determined.
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 No. 3685, ] UNE 15, 1940 NATURE 923
Aside from this result, the theory frees field some extent the discrete character of Bohr's
physics from the disability it suffered from, in 'permitted' paths by the stationary character of
common with the Newtonian mechanics, of the corresponding waves.
ascribing to space those independent physical Now in mechanics the motion of material points
properties which heretofore had been concealed by is determined by the forces or fields of force acting
the use of an inertial system. But it cannot be upon them. Hence it was to be expected that those
claimed that those parts of the general relativity fields of force would also influence de Broglie's
theory which can to-day be regarded as final have wave fields in an analogous way. Erwin Schri:idinger
furnished physics with a complete and satisfactory showed how this influence was to be taken into
foundation. In the first place, the total field account, re-interpreting by an ingenious method
appears in it to be composed of two logically un- certain formulations of classical mechanics. He
connected parts, the gravitational and the electro- even succeeded in expanding the wave mechanical
magnetic. In the second place, this theory, like theory to a point where, without the introduction
the earlier field theories, has not yet supplied an of any additional hypotheses, it became applicable
explanation of the atomistic structure of matter. to any mechanical system consisting of an arbitrary
This failure has probably some connexion with the number of mass points, that is to say, possessing
fact that so far it has contributed nothing to the an arbitrary number of degrees of freedom. This
understanding of quantum phenomena. was possible because a mechanical system consist-
In 1900, in the course of a purely theoretical ing of n mass points is mathematically equivalent,
investigation, Max Planck made a remarkable dis- to a considerable degree, to one single mass point
covery: the law of radiation of bodies as a function moving in a space of 3n dimensions.
of temperature could not be derived solely from On the basis of this theory there was obtained
the laws of Maxwellian electrodynamics. To a surprisingly good representation of an immense
arrive at results consistent with the relevant ex- variety of facts which otherwise appeared entirely
periments, radiation of a given frequency had to incomprehensible. But on one point, curiously
be treated as though it consisted of energy atoms enough, there was failure: it proved impossible
of the individual energy hv, where h is Planck's to associate with these Schri:idinger waves definite
universal constant. During the years following it motions of the mass points-and that, after all,
was shown that light was everywhere produced had been the original purpose of the whole con-
and absorbed in such energy quanta. In particular, struction.
Niels Bohr was able largely to understand the The difficulty appeared insurmountable, until
structure of the atom, on the assumption that it was overcome by Born in a way as simple as it
atoms can have only discrete energy values, and was unexpected. The de Broglie - Schri:idinger
that the discontinuous transitions between them wave fields were not to be interpreted as a mathe-
are connected with the emission or absorption of matical description of how an event actually takes
such an energy quantum. This threw some light place in time and space, though, of course, they
on the fact that in their gaseous state elements and have reference to such an event. Rather they are
their compounds radiate and absorb only light of a mathematical description of what we can
certain sharply defined frequencies. All this was actually know about the system. They serve only
quite inexplicable within the frame of the theories to make statistical statements and predictions of
hitherto existing. It was clear that, at least in the the results of all measurements which we can carry
field of atomistic phenomena, the character of out upon the system.
everything that happens is determined by discrete Let me illustrate these general features of
states and by apparently discontinuous transitions quantum mechanics by means of a simple ex-
between them, Planck's constant h having a ample : we shall consider a mass point kept inside
decisive role. a restricted region G by forces of finite strength.
The next step was taken by de Broglie. He asked If the kinetic energy of the mass point is below
himself how the discrete states could be under- a certain limit, then the mass point, according to
stood by the aid of the current concepts, and hit classical mechanics, can never leave the region G.
on a parallel with stationary waves, as for example But according to quantum mechanics, the mass
in the case of the fundamental frequencies of organ point, after a period not immediately predictable,
pipes and strings in acoustics. True, wave actions is able to leave the region G, in an unpredictable
of the kind here required were unknown ; but they direction, and escape into surrounding space. This
could be constructed, and their mathematical laws case, according to Gamow, is a simplified model of
formulated, employing Planck's constant h. De radioactive disintegration.
Broglie conceived an electron revolving about the The quantum theoretical treatment of this case
atomic nucleus as being connected with such a is as follows : at the time t0 we have a Schri:idinger
hypothetical wave train, and made intelligible to wave system entirely inside G. But from the time
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 924 NATURE JUNE 15, 1940, VoL. 145

t0 onwards, the waves leave the interior of G in all force of the facts of experience. All attempts to
directions, in such a way that the amplitude of the represent the particle and wave features displayed
outgoing wave is small compared to the initial in the phenomena of light and matter, by direct
amplitude of the wave system inside G. The recourse to a space-time model, have so far ended
farther these outside waves spread, the more the in failure ; and Heisenberg has convincingly
amplitude of the waves inside G diminishes, and shown, from an empirical point of view, that any
correspondingly the intensity of the later waves decision as to a rigorously deterministic structure
issuing from G. Only after infinite time has passed of Nature is definitely ruled out, because of the
is the wave supply inside G exhausted, while the atomistic structure of our experimental apparatus.
outside wave has spread over an ever-increasing Thus it is probably out of the question that any
space. future knowledge can compel physics again to
But what has this wave process to do with the relinquish our present statistical theoretical founda-
first object of our interest, the particle originally tion in favour of a deterministic one which would
enclosed in G ? To answer this question, we must deal directly with physical reality. Logically, the
imagine some arrangement which will permit us problem seems to offer two possibilities, between
to carry out measurements on the particle. For which we are in principle given a choice. In the
example, let us imagine somewhere in the sur- end, the choice will be made according to which
rounding space a screen so made that the particle kind of description yields the formulation of the
sticks to it on coming into contact with it. Then simplest foundation, logically speaking. At the
from the intensity of the waves hitting the screen present, we are quite without any deterministic
at some point, we draw conclusions as to the theory directly describing the events themselves
probability of the particle hitting the screen there and in consonance with the facts.
at that time. As soon as the particle has hit any For the time being, we have to admit that we
particular point of the screen, the whole wave field do not possess any general theoretical basis for
loses all its physical meaning; its only purpose physics which can be regarded as its logical
was to make probability predictions as to the place foundation. The field theory, so far, has failed
and time of the particle hitting the screen (or, for in the molecular sphere. It is agreed on all sides
example, its momentum at the time when it hits that the only principle which could serve as the
the screen). basis of quantum theory would be one that con-
All other cases are analogous. The aim of the stituted a translation of the field theory into the
theory is to determine the probability of the scheme of quantum statistics. Whether this will
results of measurement upon a system at a given actually come about in a satisfactory manner,
time. On the other hand, it makes no attempt to nobody can venture to say.
give a mathematical representation of what is Some physicists, among them myself, cannot
actually present or goes on in space and time. On believe that we must abandon, actually and for
this point the quantum theory of to-day differs ever, the idea of direct representation of physical
fundamentally from all previous theories of physics, reality in space and time ; or that we must accept
mechanistic as well as field theories. Instead of a the view that events in Nature are analogous to
model description of actual space-time events, it a game of chance. It is open to every man to
gives the probability distributions for possible choose the direction of his striving ; and also
measurements as functions of time. every man may draw comfort from Lessing's fine
The new theoretical conception owes its origin saying, that the search for truth is more precious
not to any flight of fancy but to the compelling than its possession.

OBITUARIES
Prof. Hugo Merton he went to the University of Edinburgh to work at
""'HE
1 Nazi regime has claimed as victim another
e:cientific worker in the person of Prof. Hugo
Merton, zoologist and traveller. In 1935 he was com-
the Institute of Animal Genetics. In the autumn of
1938 h e set out for Heidelberg, but on reaching
Germany was arrested and sent to the concentration
pelled to withdraw from his posts of deputy director of camp at Dachau, and when he was released and
the Senckenberg Naturalist Society's Museum, assist- returned to Edinburgh in the following year his
ant in the Zoological Institute of the University of health was broken. He died on March 23, 1940,
Heidelberg and "professor without chair of zoology, sixty years of age.
and in 1937, at the invitation of Prof. F. A. E. Crew, Merton was educated at the Universities of Bonn,

© 1940 Nature Publishing Group