Einstein, Albert. Autograph letter signed, 4 December [1932]....

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Einstein, Albert. Autograph letter signed, 4 December [1932]. Autograph letter signed ("A.E."), 1 page (8.5 x 11 in.; 216 x 279 mm.), probably Caputh [near Potsdam, Germany, the location of Einstein's country home], "Sunday", 4 December [1932], written to his Berlin assistant, Walther Mayer, the Viennese mathematician who published valuable contributions to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Scattered spotting affecting four words; usual folds. Einstein's important collaboration with his Berlin assistant, Walther Mayer, the Viennese mathematician who published valuable contributions to the General Theory of Relativity. Einstein writes in full: Dear Mr. Mayer! I believe I see a new possibility, which promises success. It is along the lines of the recently devised way, according to which one places 'zero' on the right side of the Dirac-Equations. The novelty is in the fact that the constants a1 ... a4 (aside from a totally irrelevant factor) are completely known without passing on to the specific Semi-Vectors. After omission of the _-terms, the equations read Ee st ?ys = s (1) ? xe Or, for De-Broglie-Equations of the restless particle E4 st ?ys = s (1a) ? x4 Here is what's new: How does one choose the a(y), so that the De Broglie - [Choices] stay largely undetermined? Result: The four equations (1a) reduce themselves into a single one, when and only when, if one lets a(1) = 1 a(2) = 1 a(3) = 1 a(4) = 1 I believe that with this selection, a(y) is [for] the equation describing the _-terms (1) the fitting substitute, for the DeBroglie-Equation. These equations are already supplied by the simplest Hamilton function. See, if the general equations (1) degenerate with this placing for a as well. If this were the case, the whole thing would be useless. I leave on Saturday. A letter that is sent to Antwerp, to the 'Oakland', Hapag, Antwerp harbor, will reach me until December 13. Cordial greetings from your A. E. Mayer began working with Einstein c. early 1930. In October 1930, the two submitted a paper to the Prussian Academy in which a new unified field theory was proposed, one based on a four-dimensional space-time continuum with a five-dimensional tangent space attached at each point. From December 1930 to March 1931, Einstein made his first trip to California, accompanied by Mayer, since Einstein did not wish to interrupt the collaboration. In December, 1932, they completed their last joint paper to be published in Germany. It dealt with semi-vectors and spinors and was the last paper published by Einstein in the Sitzungsberichte of the Preussische Akademie. Their next two papers together again dealt with semi-vectors, and were produced during their stay at Le Coq sur Mer in Belgium. Einstein's collaboration with Walther Mayer was brief, but very significant. So important was the collaboration to Einstein that, after his own appointment as Professor at The Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, New Jersey) in October, 1932, he put the pressure on the Institute to give Mayer a tenured position there with the title of associate, the only appointment of its kind ever made by the Institute. Despite Einstein's efforts to continue to work with Mayer, after 1934, Mayer returned to his own pursuits in pure mathematics. Accompanied with a 2-page (6 x 8.25 in.; 152 x 210 mm.) leaf on which Albert Einstein has handwritten numerous mathematical equations and notations. In addition, the verso features three lines of equations by Einstein.