THE GREATEST SCANDAL IN PHYSICS - AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION OFFPRINT ISSUE

EINSTEIN, A. (+) E. RUPP.

Über die Interferenzeigenschaften des durch Kanalstrahlen emittierten Lichtes [Einstein] (+) Über die Interferenzeigenschaften des Kanalstrahllichtes [Rupp]. Offprint from "Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften", XXV, 1926.

1926. Royal8vo. Author's presentation offprint with the printed presentation statement on top of frontwrapper "Überreicht von den Verfassern" [i.e. "Given by the authors"]. Original printed wrappers. Front wrapper loose, but fully intact. "Chilpp 202" and "Recdese 160" written in hand to top of front wrapper. A very fine and clean copy. Pp. 334-351.

First edition, in the scarce author's presentation offprint issue, of this important paper, which contains Einstein's theories on wave-particle duality and German physicist Rupp's work on the same subject, seemingly to corroborating Einstein's theories. Rupp's experimental results later turned out to have been falsifications, and today he is mainly known as the protagonist in one of the biggest scandals in physics in the 20th century.

Rupp published a number of papers on the interference properties of light emitted by canal ray sources. These articles, particularly the present that came into being in close collaboration with Albert Einstein, attracted quite a lot of attention, as they probed the wave versus particle nature of light. They also significantly propelled Rupp's career, even though they were considered highly controversial to begin with.

In April 1926, Albert Einstein proposed to Emil Rupp to carry out two experiments that were to prove the wave nature of light versus the particle nature of light: the so-called 'Wire Grid Experiment' and the 'Rotated Mirror Experiment', experiments that Einstein had worked on theoretically and now would like to gain confirmation of through experiments.
Rupp, at the time regarded as one of the most important and most competent experimental physicists, gladly took up the challenge. Rupp's observations - though highly controversial - confirmed Einstein's theory. Due to the surprising outcome of the experiments, Einstein was interested in exactly how it they were conducted, as Rupp's initial descriptions did not convince him that the results were feasible.

"Rupp stood by his observations and suggested yet other circumstances that might explain them. Did Einstein now realize that there was something rather dubious about Rupp's work? He had seen him change his data repeatedly-and each time in better accordance with his own criticism, and on one occasion in no less than two days. He had had to accept that Rupp claimed to earlier have "unknowingly" or "unconsciously" rotated a mirror, and he will likely have seen that Rupp's work was highly controversial amongst experimentalists, leading to very public criticism in Die Naturwissenschaften. He himself was now also convinced that, in fact, Rupp's results were incomprehensible. So, did Einstein choose to suspend the publication of Rupp's piece, so that an additional round of checks and balances could take place?
The answer is no: Rupp's paper was presented by Einstein to the Prussian Academy in a session on 21 October 1926, and it appeared in print in the Academy's proceedings in November of 1926-the articles by Einstein and Rupp came out back to back, and reprints circulated with both papers bound together, with a joint cover page that displayed both titles. Einstein referred in his article to Rupp's claims and he had even written the abstract of Rupp's paper" (Dongen: "Emil Rupp, Albert Einstein and the Canal Ray Experiments on Wave-Particle").

The first clear indication that Rupp's work was impossible to recreate came in 1930 in a paper published by Staub - nothing was wrong with Einstein's theory but Rupp's work was simply impossible: "Rupp immediately set out to respond to Straub's publication. On 12 July 1930 he sent a first draft to Einstein, to whom he also announced his intention of redoing his canal ray experiments-Straub was dismissed as a clumsy graduate student with a lousy apparatus. Einstein suggested inviting Straub once Rupp had his experiment up and running again, but cautioned him not to engage the polemic in too sharp a tone". Rupp managed to convince the physics society and continued to publish the new few years. In 1934 various different physicians pointed out that Rupp's work was impossible to recreate, and in 1935 the final blow to Rupp's career came about, when the German Physical Society's decided not to allow any citations of Rupp's work. This seems to have had very severe consequences, as today it is almost impossible to find any quotations - or even mentioning of Rupp in general, let alone his fraud - in any historical studies of either quantum theory or of Einstein.

Despite the unquestionable fraud by Rupp, his experiments and collaboration with Einstein might have had a positive influence on the further progression to quantum mechanics. The two present papers became of seminal importance in the discussions between Bohr and Heisenberg, which eventually in 1927 resulted in Heisenberg publishing his landmark thesis on the uncertainty principle. When Max Born received the Nobel Prize in physics he stated that: "An idea of Einstein gave me the lead [From the present paper]. He had tried to make the duality of particles-light quanta or photons-and waves comprehensible by interpreting the square of the optical wave amplitudes as probability density for the occurrence of photons."

Boni 160; Weil 153.

Order-nr.: 46540