Σ. Τραχανάς. Ο βομβιστής και ο στρατηγός

Ίσως έχει κάποιο ενδιαφέρον η αντιπαραβολή του αποσπάσματος στο προηγούμενο σχόλιό μου με το ακόλουθο από το βιβλίο  Max Jammer  The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics
Incidentally, there exists an interesting document which ostensibly puts on record the reaction toward Einstein’s notion of light quanta, prior to Millikan’s final empirical confirmation of the photoelectric equation, on the part of Germany’s most prominent physicists. To ensure the election of Einstein on June 12, 1913, to membership in the Prussian Academy of Science, in replacement of the recently deceased  J. H. van’t Hoff, the noted Dutch physical chemist and first Nobel laureate in chemistry, four of the most eminent German physicists, Planck, Warburg, Nernst, and Rubens, submitted to the Prussian Ministry of Education a petition in which they recommended Einstein for this vacancy. In this signed document they described Einstein’s work on the special theory of relativity, his contributions to the quantum theory of specific heats-which we shall discuss in the next section-and his treatment of the photoelectric and photochemical effects. In concluding their recommendation, they declared: “Summing up, we may say that there is hardly one among the great problems, in which modern physics is so rich, to which Einstein has not made an important contribution. That he may sometimes have missed the target in his speculations, as, for example, in his hypothesis of light quanta, cannot really be held too much against him, for it is not possible to introduce fundamentally new ideas, even in the most exact sciences, without occasionally taking a risk.”  It is instructive to compare this assessment of Einstein’s work on light quanta with its evaluation at a later period as, for example, with K. T. Compton’s description of it as “a contribution to physical theory certainly comparable in importance, and thus far more useful in its applications than his more impressive and wider publicized general theory of relativity.”