La siguiente carta ha sido acreditada como perteneciente a los archivos de la oficina suiza de patentes. Apareció recientemente en la revista [«Science»:http://www.sciencemag.org/]. Siento no tenerla en castellano.
21 September 1904
TO: Patent Office Headquarters
FROM: Albert Einstein
SUBJECT: Commercial Prospects for My Research
I am responding to your request for more information concerning my proposed research for the coming year. In particular, you asked me to describe the prospects for the economic development of Switzerland that will arise from my current work. You have also asked me to explain my work and its commercial prospects in terms that are understandable to the typical Swiss voter. I am working on three related topics: Brownian motion, the theory of relativity, and the photoelectric effect. Although the work on all three is far from complete, I believe that it is not too soon to see great commercial prospects for Switzerland in at least two of these projects. Brownian motion is the movement of small particles that float in a liquid. No one is quite sure why these little fellows jump around so much, but previous research confirms that their motions are random. My research is based on the idea that liquids a recomposed of tiny little pieces of matter, so small that they cannot be seen by the most powerful microscope, and that these little beggars are always jumping around. Occasionally, they bump into the specks floating in the liquid, causing the specks to jump, too.
The commercial prospects here depend on finding a way to control and make use of the jumping specks. If my research is successful, we may be able to create new types of liquids and specks that cause specks to jump around more frequently and in entertaining ways. If so, bartenders will be able to sell beer and schnapps with colourful bouncing specks. Maybe we can find ways to get the specks to sparkle or explode when they are bumped, in ways that are not damaging to the intestinal track of the consumer. If I am allowed to patent a device that implements this idea, I commit to licensing it only to Swiss brewers and distillers, so that Switzerland can dominate the world market in these products. The theory of relativity is an attempt to integrate time, distance, matter, and energy into a unified theory of everything. My progress here is slow, and so I have decided to leave out gravity for this version. I am now concentrating on the implications of the fact that light, unlike other forms of energy, travels at the same speed in all mediums, even a vacuum. This seems to imply that if several people see the same light, it will travel in relation to each one at the same speed, even if they are moving in relation to each other. The commercial prospects of this work are enormous. If I can prove one or two more conjectures, the implication will be that it is possible to grow younger if we just travel fast enough. The implications for the Swiss travel industry are staggering. If I can use this theory to build a device for travelling to youthfulness, I will patent it in Switzerland and grant licenses only to Swiss travel agencies to offer such excursions to the public.
The photoelectric effect refers to the fact that under some conditions, one can generate electricity by shining light on matter. My research pursues some implications of my conjecture that energy, too, is comprised of little tiny things and that these explain how light is transformed into electricity. I have thought long and hard about the commercial implications of this project, but, sadly, I have not been able to see any. Electricity is useful for lights and trolleys, but its commercial potential does not seem particularly great. Moreover, Edison and Westinghouse have been successfully pursuing other means of producing it rather than shining lights on certain materials. My initial thought was that one could manufacture an electric light that would shine on your newspaper as you walked down the street, but I now realize that for this to work it would have to be light out anyway. Perhaps I should abandon this project in favour of the others because its commercial prospects are so dim.