Albert Einstein

Joulupäivänä 1922 tuore Nobel-voittaja Albert Einstein seisoi esiintymislavalla Mojin kaupungissa Japanissa ja soitti viulua lasten joulujuhlassa. Einstein oli noussut lokakuussa vaimonsa kanssa Kitano Maru -alukseen ja lähtenyt matkalle kohti Aasiaa. Maihin hän saapui Nobel-kruunun kantajana, jonka ajatukset kiehtoivat sekä akateemista yhteisöä että suurta yleisöä. Matkallaan Einstein piti päiväkirjaa, jonka sivuilla hän kamppailee niin vieraan kulttuurin, monimutkaisten tieteellisten pulmien kuin yksityisten ongelmienkin kanssa. Matkani Japaniin on kiehtova historiallinen dokumentti ja tilaisuus kurkistaa suuren neron ajatuksiin, ennakkoluuloihin, toiveisiin ja pelkoihin.

The ultimate collection of Einstein’s public writings on everything from religion and art to pacifism and the atomic bombThe Essential Einstein: Public Writings presents a rich selection of Einstein’s humanistic writings drawn from a diverse array of materials he sanctioned for publication during his lifetime. Distinct from previous collections, this incisive book presents previously excerpted works in their entirety, including key articles, lectures, and speeches. These writings delve into significant topics such as philosophy, religion, and art, but also specific important and often contentious issues in education, politics, disarmament, pacifism, international cooperation, the atomic bomb, and Zionism. Among these works, readers will find the brilliant “Notes for an Autobiography” alongside selected popular science articles, which offer a profound understanding of Einstein’s ethical and political worldview. The Essential Einstein is a two-volume compendium offering general readers and specialists alike a comprehensive resource on the pivotal writings of Albert Einstein. Organized chronologically by leading authorities on Einstein and his work, this collection illuminates the evolution of Einstein’s scientific and humanistic ideas throughout his life. Each selection is accompanied by explanatory notes that detail the work’s background and significance. Together with The Essential Einstein: Scientific Writings, this authoritative collection invites a deeper engagement with the intellectual legacy and enduring influence of Albert Einstein.

The ultimate collection of Einstein’s scientific writings on everything from statistical mechanics to general relativityThe Essential Einstein: Scientific Writings presents Einstein’s most important physics papers, spanning his groundbreaking contributions to statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and relativity as well as his ambitious yet ultimately unrealized attempts at a general unified field theory. This incisive collection contains works that profoundly influenced the trajectory of modern science. Each piece serves not only as a reflection of his intellectual rigor and creativity but also as a cornerstone of contemporary scientific thought. The Essential Einstein is a two-volume compendium offering general readers and specialists alike a comprehensive resource on the pivotal writings of Albert Einstein. Organized chronologically by leading authorities on Einstein and his work, this collection illuminates the evolution of Einstein’s scientific and humanistic ideas throughout his life. Each selection is accompanied by explanatory notes that detail the work’s background and significance. Together with The Essential Einstein: Public Writings, this authoritative collection invites a deeper engagement with the intellectual legacy and enduring influence of Albert Einstein.

The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of Relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics. The work presumes a standard of education corresponding to that of a university matriculation examination, and, despite the shortness of the book, a fair amount of patience and force of will on the part of the reader. The author has spared himself no pains in his endeavor to present the main ideas in the simplest and most intelligible form, and on the whole, in the sequence and connection in which they actually originated. In the interest of clearness, it appeared to me inevitable that I should repeat myself frequently, without paying the slightest attention to the elegance of the presentation. I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler. I make no pretence of having withheld from the reader difficulties which are inherent to the subject. On the other hand, I have purposely treated the empirical physical foundations of the theory in a "step-motherly" fashion, so that readers unfamiliar with physics may not feel like the wanderer who was unable to see the forest for the trees. May the book bring someone a few happy hours of suggestive thought

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A definitive scholarly edition of the correspondence and papers of Albert EinsteinThis volume finds Einstein recovered and traveling again after a prolonged illness, to Paris, London, and Zurich to receive three honorary doctorates; to the Sixth Solvay Congress in Brussels and to Leyden; and to attend the Constituent Meeting of the Jewish Agency Council in Zurich and the twelfth session of the ICIC in Geneva. By the end of the volume, Einstein embarks on a transatlantic voyage for the first time in five years to spend an academic term at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Einstein’s work focuses on the teleparallel approach to unified field theory, on which he engages in intensive correspondence with Élie Cartan and begins his collaboration with Walther Mayer. He also presents popular accounts of his work, surveying the historical progression from classical to twentieth-century physics leading up to the latest developments in unified field theory. He also engages in lively exchanges on both technical and foundational issues in quantum mechanics with W. Pauli, M. Born, M. Schlick, and others. His personal correspondence reflects eventful changes: the Einsteins realize their dream of owning a summer house outside Berlin, Einstein becomes a grandfather, his younger son Eduard commences his university studies and has his first serious mental health crisis, and his younger stepdaughter Margot gets married. Einstein’s ties to the Zionist movement are seriously tested in the wake of the violence that erupts in British Mandate Palestine in 1929, to which he reacts with forceful calls for a genuine symbiosis between Jews and Arabs, proposing the establishment of joint administrative, economic, and social organizations. He warns that without finding “the path to honest cooperation and honest negotiations with the Arabs,” “we [Jews] have learned nothing from our two-thousand-year ordeal and deserve the fate that will befall us.” In Germany, too, Einstein champions democracy in the face of rising support for the Nazi Party, is active on behalf of Jewish refugees, opposes the death penalty, and supports abortion rights and the decriminalization of homosexuality. Einstein promotes pacifism more vigorously. His efforts to promote peace follow three distinct transnational avenues: disarmament, conscientious objection, and apolitical pacifism, aimed “to find practical mechanisms to restrict the nation state.”