Volume 12 press release
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The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein The Berlin Years: Correspondence, January–December 1921
Edited by Diana Kormos Buchwald, Ze'ev Rosenkranz, Tilman Sauer, József Illy, Virginia Iris Holmes, Jeroen van Dongen, A.J. Kox, Daniel Kennefick, & Osik Moses. Volume 12 of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein edited by the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, presents as full text or in abstract 791 letters authored or received by Einstein in the period January through December 1921, as well as transcriptions of several significant lectures and interviews. 1921 was the year Einstein first traveled to America and gave his now famous Princeton Lectures on relativity. This is the year when Albert Einstein the Physicist becomes Einstein the Celebrity. During his extended travels that year, Einstein promoted reconciliation within the post-war international scientific community, and also his new scientific theories. He embarked on his first trip to the United States in order to raise funds to establish a Hebrew University in Palestine. But he also delivered 17 lectures on the theory of relativity to American audiences. In a previously unknown transcript of an address he delivered in May while lecturing in Chicago, Einstein apparently stated that, already as a student, he had come across the Michelson-Morley experiment, an historical issue that has long been debated. Einstein also delved into politics, meeting with high-level British dignitaries including Prime Minister Lloyd George and the Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as the first Reich president Friedrich Ebert and other members of the Reich and Prussian cabinets. He even tried to be of assistance to scientists from Soviet Russia. While the Versailles peace treaty was being implemented, the pacifist Einstein was confronted with accusations of treason, and the first printed call for his murder appeared in a right wing German newspaper. Einstein’s scientific preoccupations were also of utmost significance - amid constant controversies on the theory of relativity, he undertook a remarkable variety of new theoretical and experimental investigations. Together with colleagues, Einstein hoped to throw light on the microscopic, molecular realm, and to overcome the dualism of field and matter that emerged in the new quantum theory. Volume 12 portrays the harsh demands upon his time that notoriety brings despite a substantial improvement in his previously difficult financial circumstances. He writes to an old associate that he has become displeased with his hectic life, and that he barely has an opportunity for “reflection.” For him, science is “the utmost.” Although he mused that his own “inventing on a grand scale” might be over, by December he exulted that an experiment designed to probe the process of light emitted by canal ray particles, on which he had been working for several months, had given him his “strongest scientific experience in years.” The documentary edition of Volume 12 contains Einstein’s letters in their original languages while the supplementary paperback volume presents English translations of select materials. About the Editors: At the California Institute of Technology, Diana Kormos Buchwald is professor of history; Tilman Sauer is senior research associate in history; and Ze'ev Rosenkranz, József Illy, and Virginia Iris Holmes are research staff in history. About the Series: T he Collected Papers of Albert Einstein is one of the most ambitious publishing ventures ever undertaken in the documentation of the history of science. The series will provide the first complete picture of a massive written legacy that ranges from Einstein's first work on the special and general theories of relativity and the origins of quantum theory, to expressions of his profound concern with civil liberties, education, Zionism, pacifism, and disarmament. Sponsored by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Princeton University Press, the Einstein project was located at and supported by Boston University from 1986 to 2000. Currently located at and supported by The California Institute of Technology, the project will continue to make available a monumental collection of primary material. The Albert Einstein Archives are located at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 12 The Berlin Years: Correspondence, January-December 1921 Cloth | ISBN13: 978-0-691-14190-9 | $125.00 / Ł85.00 (English translation supplement) Paper | ISBN13: 978-0-691-14191-6 | $45.00 / Ł30.95 Publication Date: July 22, 2009 |
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