General relativity in the making, 1916--1918: Rudolf J. Humm in Göttingen and Berlin (Q1985477)

This is a surprisingly interesting biographical sketch of Rudolf Humm. Primarily known as a novelist in his home country of Switzerland, Humm actually studied physics in Berlin and Göttingen in the years 1916--1918, that is in what Jürgen Renn and Hanoch Gutfreund have designated ``the formative years of general relativity''. The paper draws on Humm's extensive diaries, which offer fascinating and novel glimpses into the atmosphere of the time and into the thoughts of some of the major protagonists, such as David Hilbert (who is something of a bad guy in the story), Felix Klein (especially his historical work on mathematics), and Albert Einstein (Humm's recollections provide Einstein's most extensive early remarks on the problem of quantum gravity that I know of). No historical thesis is put forth, besides the claim that Humm is an interesting historical character, a claim that anyone who reads this wonderful little paper will certainly endorse.