einstein sent this to curie in 1911 when she was being harassed by tabloids. it contains everything you’d want in such a letter:
(1) your haters are trash
(2) you’re a baller, a true queen
(3) i have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in planck’s radiation field 🧪⚛️
An interesting point. If they wrote often and had some friendly intimacy, it would be more likely that he would drop the "Frau Doktor" formalities. One would have to see how he wrote his letters to his male colleagues with which he was similarly friendly.
As a native German speaker, Einstein probably disliked speaking French. I feel much the same for Curie, but less certain. As you say, the French have some sway in Poland going back.... Her(Anglicized) first name is basically French. And yet I feel that most Poles can speak German.
Based on his history in the US and the difficulties encountered learning English, German is the more likely language of correspondence. German and French were lingua franca (ha!) of scientific writing of the era. In some fields more one than the other.
it is interesting looking at how he addresses different people. He is addressing Lise Meitner as Frl Meitner. (It's also funny to me that he is writing her when she would've been only a post-doc?, way before anything that made her famous, that whole world of physics was so small)
It’s also indicative of a senior researcher/scholar paying attention to the work of their juniors. I’ve spoken with a “junior“ scholar—whose publications and academic attainments were far beyond mine—who was absolutely bowled over by a complimentary review from the senior scholar for whom I worked.
