Final Years
From the correspondence with his close friends of May 1931 it appears that Ehrenfest suffered from severe depression. By August 1932, Einstein was so worried that he wrote to the Board of the University of Leiden, expressing deep concern and suggesting ways in which Ehrenfest's workload could be reduced.
In Amsterdam, on September 25, 1933, he lost his battle with depression. Having made arrangements for the care of his other children, he first shot his younger son Wassik, who had Down syndrome, then killed himself.
Read more about this topic: Paul Ehrenfest
Famous quotes containing the words final and/or years:
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and
place avails not,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)