Evening star., 1940-05-15

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new generation has risen which
contains thousands Of men not only
capable Of understanding him, but
OF going-some Of them at least
beyond his understanding. They
cluster together at science meetings
and look like high school boys.
Einstein was born into a mech
anistic age Men believed that the
laws Of nature, once they were
known. proved infallible, that every
thing that happened had a cause
and that the same cause always
produced the same effect. Any ex-
ception to this fell in the field OF
religion. where the laws of nature
were transcended anyway. This
concept held in the laws Of Einstein
as vigorously as they had in the
laws of Newton. and they were es-
sential to any belief In q universe
governed by law and order.
Flaws Remain.
The new concepts of Einstein ap-
parently explained perfectly the
actions of gravity. They did not
f1t so well the actions Of lum-
inesence and electromagnetism.
which also seemed to be, actions
at a distance" The philosopher sat
down to make such changes and
notifications in relativity as were
necessary to fit the whole picture
and made considerable progress. al
though never quite reaching the
goal. ..
Outside progress was rapid. Rela-
tivity, instead of something "only 10
men in the world could understand"
became almost a commonplace In
physical laboratories with the COM
ing Of the new generation Of grad
uate students.
Adolf Hitler appeared. Anti
semiticism grew in Germany and
Einstein left the pleasant Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute in suburban Ber-
lin, now rumored to be doomed to
ultimate destruction because of ex-
periments in the utilization Of atomic
power for military purposes. He
came to Princeton University and
worked on.
His appearance at the American
Science Congress today was one of
the few public appearances he has
made before scientists since coming
to the United States. He has con-
tinued to publish in mathematical
journals, however, and has become
more and more Of q legendary figure
the old master of all the great
minds in the world.
None Too Hopeful.
But life is short, the human mind
is limited in its capacities, and Al
bert Einstein seemed none too hope
full any more.
The present status he described as
follows: I'VE shall consider a mass
point kept inside a restricted region
G. by forces OF finite strength. II
the kinetic energy Of the mass point
Is below a certain limit, then the
mass point, according to classical
mechanics, can never leave the
region G.
out, aCCO1NlIlk W CIlC ucW Qudu.
tum mechanics, the mass point, after
a period not Immediately predictable,
Is able to leave the region c. in
an unpredictable direction, and
escape into surrounding space. This
case, according to Prof. Gamov (Dr.
Georges Gamov of George WASH
ington University, who is one Of the
leaders In the new beyond -Einstein
school. Is simplified model Of
radioactive disintegration.
"The theoretical treatment Of this
case is as follows: At a time-t-o-
we have q wave system entirely
inside G. From the time-t-o-
onwards the waves leave the in
terror Of g in all directions, in
such 4 way that the amplitude of
the outgoing wave is small COM
pared to the initial ampliture of
the wave system inside C. The
farther these outside waves spread
the more the amplitude Of the waves
inside G diminishes, and so does
that Of the later waves issuing from
G. Only after infinite time has
passed Is the wave supply inside