The LIBRARY

The fir­st volu­me of  “The Libra­ry of Living Phi­lo­so­phers” appea­red in 1939,
brain­child of the late Pro­fes­sor Paul Arthur Schilpp, edi­tor until 1981.
Each volu­me is devo­ted to a sin­gle living lea­ding philosopher
and con­tains an “intel­lec­tual auto­bio­gra­phy” and a com­ple­te bibliography,
a col­lec­tion of cri­ti­cal essays by seve­ral con­tem­po­ra­ry philosophers
on aspec­ts of the sub­jec­t’s work, with respon­ses by the sub­ject himself.

This spe­ci­fic volu­me is dedi­ca­ted to a near­ly obscu­re cha­rac­ter named A. Einstein
to whom some 25 phy­si­cists and phi­lo­so­phers wished to pled­ge a paper
and to whom he replied in some 25 pages in Feb. 1949
Here a short pas­sa­ge by Niels Bohr essay, recal­ling the fir­st steps of the ‘pho­ton’
and whe­re he men­tions other two gian­ts of phy­si­cal research in tho­se years,
who­se dif­fi­cult lives would be worth rea­ding.   (a.m. XI’24)

••••.••••

… As is well kno­wn, it was the inti­ma­te rela­tion, elu­ci­da­ted pri­ma­ri­ly by Bol­tz­mann, bet­ween the laws of ther­mo­dy­na­mics and the sta­ti­sti­cal regu­la­ri­ties exhi­bi­ted by mecha­ni­cal systems with many degrees of free­dom, which gui­ded Planck in his inge­nious treat­ment of the pro­blem of ther­mal radia­tion, lea­ding him to his fun­da­men­tal disco­ve­ry. Whi­le, in his work, Planck was prin­ci­pal­ly con­cer­ned with con­si­de­ra­tions of essen­tial­ly sta­ti­sti­cal cha­rac­ter and with great cau­tion refrai­ned from defi­ni­te con­clu­sions as to the extent to which the exi­sten­ce of the quan­tum implied a depar­tu­re from the foun­da­tions of mecha­nics and elec­tro­dy­na­mics, Ein­stei­n’s great ori­gi­nal con­tri­bu­tion to quan­tum theo­ry (1905) was just the reco­gni­tion of how phy­si­cal phe­no­me­na like the pho­to-effect may depend direc­tly on indi­vi­dual quan­tum effec­ts. In the­se very same years when, in deve­lo­ping his theo­ry of rela­ti­vi­ty, Ein­stein laid a new foun­da­tion for phy­si­cal scien­ce, he explo­red with a most daring spi­rit the novel fea­tu­res of ato­mi­ci­ty which poin­ted beyond the who­le fra­mework of clas­si­cal phy­sics. With unfai­ling intui­tion Ein­stein thus was led step by step, to the con­clu­sion that any radia­tion pro­cess invol­ves the emis­sion or absorp­tion of indi­vi­dual light quan­ta or “pho­tons” with ener­gy and momentum … .

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The Libra­ry of Living Phi­lo­so­phers vol. VII
Albert Ein­stein — Philosopher-Scientist
ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp edi­tion 1982 – excerpt from pg.202