Über das thermische Gleichgewicht zwischen Strahlung und freien Elektronen. Offprint inscribed to Kramers
Publisher Information: 1923.
Pauli, Wolfgang (1900-1958). Über das thermische Gleichgewicht zwischen Strahlung und freien Elektronen. Offprint from Zeitschrift für Physik 18 (1923). 272-286pp. 229 x 158 mm. Original printed wrappers, a bit worn, small splits and tears in spine. Very good. Presentation Copy, Inscribed by Pauli to H. A. Kramers (1894-1952) on the front wrapper: “Kramers [in upper left corner] Was sagen Sie dazu, daß Ihr Landsmann Ornstein im wesentlichen dieselben Annahmen ‘zugrunde gelegt und dasselbe Resultat erricht’ hat?”
First Edition, Offprint Issue. Written during his time at Bohr’s laboratory in Copenhagen, Pauli’s paper “gives and interesting and not well-known derivation of Planck’s radiation law, based on the energy-momentum conservation for the Compton effect . . . Pauli then remarks that a generalization of this procedure to other systems, such as atoms, allows one to consider optical dispersion phenomena. As observed by Bohr, this generalization is very closely related to Kramers’ dispersion relation” (Enz, pp. 781-782).
Pauli presented this copy of his paper to Kramers, one of the main architects, along with Heisenberg, Schrödinger and Pauli, of quantum mechanics. Pauli became friends with Kramers during his time in Copenhagen, where Kramers worked for many years as Bohr’s assistant. Pauli’s inscription can be translated as “What do you say about the fact that your compatriot Ornstein essentially ‘made the same assumptions and achieved the same result’?” Pauli is quoting here from a paper by Dutch physicists Leonard S. Ornstein and H. C. Burger that had appeared in the Zeitschrift für Physik—either “Die Dimension der Einsteinschen Lichtquanten” (Vol. 20, pp. 345-350) or “Zur Dynamik des Stoßes zwischen einem Lichtquant und einem Elektron” (Vol. 20, pp. 351-357). Enz, “W. Pauli’s scientific work,” in J. Mehra, ed., The Physicist’s Conception of Nature, pp. 766-799.
Book Id: 45903Price: $2,500.00