Talk:Paul Ehrenfest

message: The Russian calendric biographical site http://www.znanie-sila.ru/online/issue_2337.html has a rather different biography of Ehrenfest on it. Even allowing for the old fashioned Soviet habits of distortion, I think it has much that should be taken into account when editing the Wikipedia entry on Ehrenfest, so here is my hasty translation:
Begin translation-------------
70 years ago 25 Sept. 1933, Paul Ehrenfest, Foreign Correspondent of the USSR Academy of Sciences killed himself. He was a great theoretical physicist of Austrian-Jewish extraction, professor of
the University of Leiden (Holland), creator of an international school of theoretical physics. From 1907 to 1912 he lived in St. Petersburg (where he was called "Paul Sigismundovich"), and played a significant role in the founding and development of theoretical physics of European calibre in Russia. The cause for his arrival in Russia was his mariage to Tatyana Alexeevna Afanasyeva, who was studying mathematics at Goettingen University. Ehrenfests's suicide was caused by his loss of faith in his own abilities and his painful conviction of his own exhaustion of his scholarly potential. In addition to this, his strength of spirit was being continually undercut by his awareness of his younger son's incurable mental illness. And here was the tragic finale: Ehrenfest went to a country guest house, where his unfortunate son was being kept, sat together with him in a boat, rowed out to the center of the lake, where he first shot his son and then shot himself.
It is interesting that in the investigations following the NKVD arrest of the theoretical physicist Lev Landau in 1938, Ehrenfest was passed off as a German spy enlisting Soviet physicists.
End translation---------
Now I don't expect that the Wikipedia article should take all of this at face value: but I do find it odd that it mentions his suicide, and not that it was a -murder-suicide. Nor does it mention the suspicious timing: suicide was NOT the normal cause of death in 1933 in Soviet Russia: the NKVD was. It is quite possible that even fear of the NKVD was a significant contributing factor to his suicide, esecially if they later accused him of being a spy.
I should also point out that then as now, being a member of the Academy of Sciences was reserved for scientists of the most outstanding calibre, even under Stalin and Khruschev. So it was a real honor to be named a Foreign Correspondent of the Academy.
:But he was in the Netherlands when he died, not in Russia, in fact he had been in Leiden since 1912.  I don't think the Russian article you quoted is controversial, it is more or less the same as what is found in the existing external link: http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Ehrenfest.html
:-- Curps 03:48, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Inconsistencies

message: 128.135.224.3 made a revision on 01:49, 13 April 2005 saying
He suffered from low self-esteem and constant doubts about his abilities, and eventually committed suicide, shooting and blinding his son, who had Down's syndrome, before shooting himself.
Where does that and blinding come from? I cannot find any reference that confirns that.
What I do find is that Ehrenfest's son Wassik was institutionalized in Amsterdam, and that he took Wassik from the institute to the Vondelpark in Amsterdam and then shot him there before killing himself. No reference to 'blinding' though. JdH 21:53, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Should the mentioning of Wassiks Down's syndrome be mentioned? Reading the article, it seems pretty strange, that he seemingly picks a random child of his and kills it while having arranged for the other children. It's likely that the Down's was the reason why he chose Wassik.--Nwinther (talk) 08:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It is abundantly clear that his mental illness is the underlying cause of this tragedy, and it is on only cause. It is a fallacy to believe that his son's Down's syndrome would one way or another provide an explanation for the tragedy: it doesn't.  JdH (talk) 14:01, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Previously, the article just said that Wassik was shot. The Downs could be an explanation as to why he chose to shoot Wassik (rather than see to his future care which he did for his other children). I don't see how it can be read as if I propose that Downs was the cause of the tragedy (murder-suicide).--Nwinther (talk) 11:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: and blinding?

message: Can someone tell me how he was a mathematician? I did not know that, plus I don't see any mathematical professional activity in his bio, other than what in general a theoretical physicist would do. 71.103.51.35 (talk) 03:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ehrenfest is called a mathematician because the MacTutor biography labels him as such, see  http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Ehrenfest.html . His field of research is called Mathematical physics. JdH (talk) 09:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the ground for this claim is my question. MacTutor does not make that claim explicitly. His field of research was theoretical physics, not exactly mathematical physics. Reading the bio presented here nowhere do I see anything that would indicate that he was a mathematician. In addition, the Britannica says this about him: "Austrian theoretical physicist who helped clarify the foundations of quantum theory and statistical mechanics." Therefore, I think this claim is baseless and misleading. 71.103.0.107 (talk) 06:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Sigh... "Reputable"... Please sign your edits. You are casting aspersions on the publication venue of his 1905 Habilitationsschrift now, Monatshefte für Mathematik 16: A33 (1905)... I believe the dual laebile pigeonholing issue has been settled by now, Talk:Ehrenfest_theorem#Ehrenfest.27s_professional_label.  Why on earth revisit it? Whatever---make him a mathematically sophisticated puppeteer now. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 16:13, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematician? 

message: Walter M. Elsasser's biography has the following on Ehrenfest's behaviour:
:"Shortly after receiving his Ph.D. in 1927, Walter received an unexpected invitation from Paul Ehrenfest, a well-known theoretical physicist, to be his assistant in Leiden, Holland, for a semester and possibly longer, and he accepted. He wondered who had recommended him since he did not know Ehrenfest and concluded that it must have been Oppenheimer. Shortly before leaving for Leiden, Walter received a long letter from Ehrenfest concerned not with physics but with the latter's psychological problems. Walter worried about this strange behavior of explaining the complexities of his soul to a stranger half his age, soon to be his assistant. Ehrenfest met him at the train station in Leiden and immediately took him on a long walk on which he recounted his psychological problems and appeared to be pleading for help. Walter offered to help as much as he could, but as events turned out this was not to be. [snip]
:Walter developed pleasant friendships in Holland, but his relationship with Ehrenfest deteriorated as the latter changed from aggressiveness to downright hostility, for reasons Walter could not understand. One day after Walter had had a haircut with the usual barber's pomade, Ehrenfest came into his office and accused him of wearing perfume. Ehrenfest said he hated perfume, grew furious, and ordered Walter out. A few days later he told Walter to go back to Berlin. It is perhaps not unrelated to this behavior that a few years later Ehrenfest killed his retarded son and committed suicide."
This kind of change in mood, from depression to agitated/irrational actually suggests that Ehrenfest suffered of bipolar disorder. In The End of the Certain World: The Life and Science of Max Born by Nancy Thorndike Greenspan the following is said: 
:"For years, Ehrenfest had vacillated between high energy and deep depression, even telling Hedi in the past of a death wish." 
This once again suggests bipolar disorder. JdH (talk) 18:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bipolar disorder? 

message: A number of applicable categories have been removed repeatedly, with comments in the edit summary of their being "inappropriate".
If the information on the subject's suicide, death by firearm, and killing of his Down syndrome child is in the article (which it currently is), there is no reason that applicable categories relating to these events shouldn't be added. There may be an overarching argument as to why these categories should be completely deleted, but this generally isn't done on an article-individual basis, but rather through a global WP:CFD process. Until a decision is made to delete these categories, they may be applied here if they are factually supported by the text of the article. To do otherwise can appear to be a form of selective censoring, which WP does not do.
I somewhat resent the suggestion that I am ruining an article which I had no part in building. In case you missed it, WP is the encyclopedia "anyone can edit". Editors may want to examine WP:OWN to disabuse any notion that those who work hardest on an article may control it. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:57, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Category removal

message: There are a number of uncited quotations in this article, including: According to Einstein: "He was not merely the best teacher in our profession whom I have ever known; he was also passionately preoccupied with the development and destiny of men, especially his students. To understand others, to gain their friendship and trust, to aid anyone embroiled in outer or inner struggles, to encourage youthful talent — all this was his real element, almost more than his immersion in scientific problems".
Also, "His approach to science is best illustrated by what he wrote to Robert Oppenheimer in the summer of 1928, after Oppenheimer invited himself for an extended stay in Leiden: "If you intend to mount heavy mathematical artillery again during your coming year in Europe, I would ask you not only not to come to Leiden, but if possible not even to Holland, and just because I am really so fond of you and want to keep it that way. But if, on the contrary, you want to spend at least your first few months patiently, comfortably, and joyfully in discussions that keep coming back to the same few points, chatting about a few basic questions with me and our young people- and without thinking much about publishing (!!!)-why then I welcome you with open arms!! ". 
Does anyone know where these quotes came from? We should either verify them with references or remove them from the article. Thanks. Safehaven86 (talk) 03:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Those quotes come from Rowdy Boeyink's thesis, which is properly cited in the article, see http://www.rowdyboeyink.org/ehrenfest/ JdH (talk) 20:06, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, that citation should be added into the reference list and inline citations should be provided in the appropriate places within the article so that readers can verify the individual quotations. Thanks. Safehaven86 (talk) 03:12, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: A reference to Rowdy's thesis was included years ago when I first wrote the article; if you want inline references it is up to you to add those. JdH (talk) 11:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see any of those quotes at the link you provided. It is important to support these quotes with appropriate, verifiable inline citations. You removed the "citation needed" tags I added, citing this talk page. But we have not solved the problem. If you let me know exactly where these quotes are referenced in a source, I can add the inline citations that are needed to support these quotes. Thanks. Safehaven86 (talk) 19:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: !!?? It is right there, just click it! JdH (talk) 15:48, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, two of the three quotes are there, but not one of the quotes: "If you intend to mount heavy mathematical artillery again during your coming year in Europe, I would ask you not only not to come to Leiden, but if possible not even to Holland, and just because I am really so fond of you and want to keep it that way. But if, on the contrary, you want to spend at least your first few months patiently, comfortably, and joyfully in discussions that keep coming back to the same few points, chatting about a few basic questions with me and our young people- and without thinking much about publishing (!!!)-why then I welcome you with open arms!!" You removed a "citation needed" tag I added at the end of that quote, but as far as I can tell, a citation is still needed. Safehaven86 (talk) 16:24, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Uncited quotes

message: Both Timeline of black hole physics and 1917 in science mention Ehrenfest's conditional principle for 3D space, but it is not mentioned in this article.  I found what I think these are referring to here.  I am curious about the significance of this paper and specifically how it relates to black holes.  --Lasunncty (talk) 00:13, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  conditional principle