Albert Einstein. The work and personality of Walther Nernst. The Scientific Monthly 54(2):195 - 196, 1942
I accept with pleasure the invitation of the editors of this magazine to dedicate a few lines to the scientific personality of Dr. Walther Nernst, who died recently. For he was one of the most characteristic and most interesting scholars with whom I have been closely connected during my life. He did not miss any of the conferences on physics in Berlin, and his brief remarks gave evidence of a truly amazing scientific instinct combined both with a sovereign knowledge of an enormous volume of factual materials, which was always at his command, and with a rare mastery of the experimental methods and tricks in which he excelled. Although sometimes goodnaturedly smiling at his childlike vanity and self-complacency, we all had for him not only a sincere admiration, but also a personal affection. So long as his egocentric weakness did not enter the picture, he exhibited an objectivity very rarely found, an infallible sense for the essential, and a genuine passion for knowledge of the deep interrelations of nature. But for such a passion his singularity creative productivity and his important influence on the scientific life of the first third of the century would not have been possible.
He ascended from Arrhenius, Ostwald and Van't Hoff, as the last of a dynasty which based their investigations on thermodynamics, osmotic pressure and ionic theory. Up to 1905 his work was essentially restricted to that range of ideas. His theoretical equipment was somewhat elementary, but he mastered it with a rare ingenuity. I refer, for instance, to the theory of electromotive powers in solutions of locally variable concentration, the theory of diminution of the solubility by adding a dissolved substance. During this period he invented the witty null-method of determining the dielectric constant of electrically conducting bodies by means of Wheatstone's Bridge (alternating current, telephone as indicator, compensating capacity in comparison-bridge branches).
This first productive period is largely concerned with improving the methodology and completing the exploration of a field the principles of which had already been known before Nernst. This work led him gradually to a general problem which is characterized by the question: Is it possible to compute from the known energy of the conditions of a system, the useful work which is to be gained by its transition from one state into another? Nernst realized that a theoretical determination of the transition work A from the energy-difference U by means of equations of thermodynamics alone is not possible. There could be inferred from thermodynamics that, at absolute zero, the temperature of the quantities A and U must be equal. But one could not derive A from U for any arbitrary temperatures, even if the energy-values or differences in U were known for all conditions. This computation was not possible until there was introduced, with regard to the reaction of these quantities under low temperatures, an assumption which appeared obvious because of its simplicity. This assumption is simply that A becomes temperature-independent under low temperatures. The introduction of this assumption as a hypothesis (third main principle of the theory of heat) is Nernst's greatest contribution to theoretical science. Planck found later a solution which is theoretically more satisfactory; namely, the entropy disappears at absolute zero temperature.
From the standpoint of the older ideas on heat, this third main principle required very strange reactions of bodies under low temperatures. To pass upon the correctness of this principle, the methods of calorimetry under low temperatures had to be greatly improved. The calorimetry of high temperatures also owes to Nernst considerable progress. Through all these investigations, as well as through many stimulating suggestions with which his untiring inventive genius supplied experimenters in his field, he promoted the research work of his generation most effectively. The beginnings of the quantum theory were assisted by the important results of those caloric investigations, and this especially before Bohr's theory of the atom made spectroscopy the most important experimental field. Nernst's standard work, "Theoretical Chemistry", offers, not only to the student but also to the scholar, an abundance of stimulating ideas; it is theoretically elementary, but clever, vivid and full of intimations of manifold interrelations. It truly reflects his intellectual characteristics.
Nernst was not a one-sided scholar. His sound common sense engaged successfully in all fields of practical life, and every conversation with him brought something interesting to light. What distinguished him from almost all his fellow-countrymen was his remarkable freedom from prejudices. He was neither a nationalist nor a militarist. He judged things and people almost exclusively by their direct success, not by a social or ethical ideal. This was a consequence of his freedom from prejudices. At the same time he was interested in literature and had such a sense of humor as is very seldom found with men who carry so heavy a load of work. He was an original personality; I have never met any one who resembled him in any essential way.
Albert Einstein
Revised 2005-01-17