Princeton, 9 February 1950

'One can be dazzled by success': laughing at the obscurity of his scientific notation, and the difficulties of proving a logical possibility.

'When I read your last letter, I had to laugh, although I myself am responsible for this lack of clarity. It is simply common to represent ordinary differentiation by a comma'. He sets the offending symbols in a box for optimum clarity: 'G_ik,l simply means δg_ik / δx_l'. This distinguishes it from similar notation with the comma replaced by a semi-colon. Einstein promises to send his work on the non-symmetrical tensor-field shortly: 'This logical possibility is so natural, that it is hardly to be believed that it is not realised. Proving this with facts comes up short against difficulties which are for the moment insuperable. You will see it soon, when you get to know the formalism better'. Einstein's response to his critics (in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, published the previous year) has unfortunately been poorly translated into English: 'One can be dazzled by success, even when it is purchased with a sacrificium intellectus'.