BROGLIE (Louis de). Correspondence of 5 letters (4 autograph - Lot 118

BROGLIE (Louis de). Correspondence of 5 letters (4 autograph signed and one autograph), addressed to the physician, psychoanalyst and writer André Berge. [Years 1920]-1973. S.l., "Tuesday 24th": "... I'm afraid you are, as I have been and still am, quite unhappy with your lot, whatever it may be. This is an infirmity that is natural to people who think and reflect. Didn't our good master Anatole France say somewhere that thinking is a disease that would not spread without rapidly bringing about the end of the species? What a profound error! The vast majority of people have never thought about anything outside their immediate interests. In the end, it's the fools who are right. As ancient wisdom so aptly put it, "Primum vivere, deinde non philosophari", only you have to be able to, and there are a few unfortunates who just can't help themselves... I continue my meditations of all kinds, reading Renan or Flaubert... Ave, Louis de Broglie, doctor subtilis." (4 pp. in-12 square). - S.l., December 6 [1924]. " ... I sent you my thesis and I think you received it well. The defense went very well and I HAD A BRILLIANT DISCUSSION WITH Mr [PAUL] LANGEVIN WHO COMPARED MY IDEAS ON QUANTA WITH THE HEGELIAN IDEA OF THE IDENTITY OF CONTRADICTORS. I passed with flying colors; I think we still have that... I hope to see you soon, and in the meantime I'm going back to my little quanta. Perhaps before I see you again, they'll have confessed their last secret to me, and I'll have arrived at a knowledge of the Absolute, the True and the Beautiful, leaving aside the Good, which has always seemed a little boring to me...". (3 pp. 3/4 in-8 square). - Neuilly-sur-Seine, July 26, 1930. " ... You complain that nature uses its free will to upset the order of the seasons and turn July into a cold, rainy month. But, my poor friend, is there any other way of asserting one's free will than to do the opposite of what the rule, the Law, would require? If one uses one's free will to carry out the Law, how can one know whether it is the free will that conforms to the Law, or the Law that inescapably carries it out, crushing the free will. IN SHORT, IT IS ONLY THE REVOLT AGAINST THE LAWS THAT ALLOWS FREEDOM TO ASSERT ITSELF... How pleasant it is to write this when you're comfortably seated in a good armchair with your faithful dog Tommy sitting at your feet. As an aside, I'd like to point out that, contrary to the doctrine of certain philosophers and perhaps even that of our Holy Mother Church, Tommy certainly has free will, as he very often disobeys me. PHYSICISTS, OBTUSE-MINDED PEOPLE, HAVE COME TO REALIZE THAT LAW IS ONLY A KIND OF IDEAL TO WHICH REALITY IS NOT BOUND TO CONFORM..." (4 pp. in-12 square). - Paris, August 19, 1973. " ... I received with emotion your affectionate letter in which you evoke memories of the time when I knew you and your brother at the end of the 1914 war... I'm still very active intellectually, and I'd like to give you a few details about that. I DISCOVERED THE PRINCIPLES OF WAVE MECHANICS IN 1923-1924. My ideas were soon confirmed by experiment, and I was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1929. But then something very curious happened. SOME VERY INTELLIGENT YOUNG PEOPLE, BUT FAR MORE MATHEMATICIANS THAN I, BUILT UP A THEORY THAT WAS MORE ABSTRACT THAN MINE AND WHICH, ALTHOUGH LEADING TO VERY EXACT RESULTS, WOULD DIFFER PROFOUNDLY FROM MY PRIMITIVE IDEAS. IT IS THIS FORM OF THEORY THAT IS TEACHED UNDER THE NAME OF QUANTIC MECHANICS, and which I myself have long resigned myself to teaching. About twenty years ago, after much hesitation, I decided, while respecting the exact results of Quantum Mechanics, to reinterpret them in a more profound way, returning to my initial ideas on the true nature of Wave Mechanics. But I was then at the peak of my career with many obligations, and I was able to make only very slow progress in my work. But in 1962, I retired from higher education... I was then able, with the help of young researchers, the oldest of whom were not yet 45, to make rapid progress and introduce a whole series of important new ideas..." (3 pp. 1/4 in-8 square, envelope preserved). - Etc. FOUNDER OF ONDULATORY MECHANICS, SYNTHESIS EMBRACING THE PHYSICS OF MATTER AND THE PHYSICS OF LIGHT, LOUIS DE BROGLIE (1892-1987) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1929 for his research. He was perpetual secretary of the Académie des Sciences and a member of the Académie française.