Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2771

Pencil drafting on notepad paper for letters to Erwin Schrödinger

and Louis de Broglie. One version of Schrödinger’s letter has been cobbled together here by the Archive editor, Spencer MacCallum, from Heath’s several false starts. Heath told MacCallum that the woman who cleaned his New York apartment at 11 Waverly Place had brought Schrödinger’s book to him one day, and he considered it among the most important books he had ever read; he likely had been talking philosophic ideas with her as he would with anyone.

1957

 

 

 

Dear Dr. Schrödinger:

 

Quite a while ago your What Is Life? quite accidentally fell into my hands. I had known for some years of your great contributions to physical science and very high distinctions in that field and was especially delighted to find a mind of such quality and type passing the de-humanizing barriers that have been assumed to separate the living from the non-living world — and with so great success. And the cultural breadth and elegance of your more recent addresses and publications suggests the possibility that my own attempt to carry basic physical conceptions over into the societal in addition to the biological field may be of some interest to you.

 

 Accordingly I am happy to present to you under separate carriage and with my compliments an advance copy of my Citadel, Market and Altar, which will be published in early June, for your examination and any comment or other acknowledgement it may inspire.

 

 With much admiration,

                       Sincerely yours,

 

 Encl: Purposes

 

 

 

 

And I have delighted in your adventuring beyond the confines of that perhaps narrowest even if most sensibly obvious aspect of objective reality.

____________________________

 

Dear Prince de Broglie:

 

Your eminence in the aesthetic arts and the general culture as well as physical science impresses me with the possibility that my attempt to understand societal phenomena from the standpoint of basic physical conceptions might be of interest to you.

 

 Accordingly, I am happy to present to you under separate carriage and with my compliments an advance copy of my Citadel, Market and Altar for your attention and any comment or acknowledgement it may inspire.

 

 With much admiration,

                       

Sincerely yours,

 

 

Encl: Purposes