Recent News
With so much happening last spring, you might have missed the April 3 issue of the Times Literary Supplement. In it P. D. Smith reviewed five books for his article "Relative values The private and public lives of Albert Einstein". EPP Editor Dan Kennefick's No Shadow of a Doubt was among the books reviewed. Smith wrote "Kennefick offers a wonderfully rich and authoritative study of the way science worked in 1919 ("a golden age for astronomy"), highlighting the role of the technicians, assistants and "computers" (people, not machines) who helped set up the telescopes, made measurements and checked complex calculations. He usefully explores the history and afterlife of the technology that enabled the eclipse to be studied." In the same article Smith writes EPP Executive Committee member Michael Gordin's book, Einstein in Bohemia, "is a fascinating mix of urban and scientific history, and a genuinely original contribution to Einstein studies".
In July, our friend and colleague Claus Spenninger received his PhD in the field of History of Science from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich's History Department. Spenninger's dissertation is titled: Stoff für Konflikt. Fortschrittsdenken und Religionskritik im naturwissenschaftlichen Materialismus des 19. Jahrhunderts, 1847-1881 or Matter and Conflict. Ideas of Progress and Critique of Religion in 19th Century Scientific Materialism, 1847-1881.
This summer we received a note in our general inbox from Prof. Diane Klein of the University of La Verne. Prof. Klein was going through a box of family papers and came across an invitation her grandfather received in 1931. It is for a tea in honor of Einstein and his wife Elsa, hosted by the Pasadena Woman's Club. The Einstein Papers Project is always interested in learning about materials of historical relevance to our project. If you have items in your personal papers written by Einstein, or ephemera such as the document highlighted here, please contact us.