To mark the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s greatest accomplishment—the general theory of relativity—we introduce a reference work that presents the many sides of his life and work: the personal, scientific, spiritual, ethical, intellectual, and sociopolitical. The selections reflect our personal vision based on our collective knowledge and experience, but we have aimed to include subject matter that will interest not only scientists but also the general public.
Organization of the Book
Einstein made indelible contributions in very different areas of endeavor—in physics as a giant of the first rank, and in the human sphere as a moral and humanitarian icon. Thus, we have divided our volume into three parts, with each one tracing a different aspect of his life.
The book is not designed to be read cover to cover, but to be consulted and browsed according to the reader’s interests. What follows is a guide that, we hope, offers readers ready accessibility to the many topics that help define Einstein.
We begin the volume with a chronology of Einstein’s life and significant achievements, followed by his credo, “What I Believe,” written in midlife in 1930, in which he summarized his way of looking at the world, his Weltanschauung. The three parts of the book follow: Part I addresses Einstein’s personal and family life; Part II his scientific accomplishments and related material; and Part III his nonscientific involvements, including his Jewish identity. Within each of these three major parts, we have arranged many of the topics in alphabetical order, though a few historical events, such as birth and death information and sections of Part III, are in chronological sequence. Subentries are listed alphabetically when possible and chronologically when necessary, the latter arrangement used generally with historical subjects. If we violated our general rule on the rare occasion when we could not come up with a clear solution for placement, we hope that readers will overlook the minor lapse. Supplementary information that did not fit neatly into the three major categories appears in appendixes. The contents and index, as well as the many cross-references, provide ways to navigate the book.
Sources
For much of the information in this volume, we relied on the Einstein Archives and the currently available volumes (1 to 14) of the comprehensive edition of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. We received valuable additional family information from the Einstein Archives’ information officer, Barbara Wolff, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Each of us also drew on our own experiences and memories from our work with these papers—an accumulated total of almost eighty years. We provide sources for direct quotations and often provide archival and other documentation for specific information so that readers can consult primary material. If we give only an author’s last name and a short title of his or her work, readers can consult the References section at the back of the book for complete source information.
Appendix A discusses books about Einstein that we have often turned to—or rejected—in our own work. Appendix B addresses the complex copyright issues related to Einstein’s works. Appendix C provides an annotated bibliography of Einstein’s publications, listing what we believe are all the most important and representative publications from Einstein’s various fields of interest.
Acknowledgments
We express our gratitude to Barbara Wolff of the Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for correcting some of our errors and supplying valuable additional information and insights. Andor Carius, József Illy, Michel Janssen, Osik Moses, Jürgen Renn, Ze’ev Rosenkranz, Tilman Sauer, John Stachel, and Jeroen van Dongen helped to clarify a number of murky issues and points or offered suggestions on the many topics covered here, and we are grateful for their contributions. We are also very grateful to Thomas Ryckman for agreeing to provide a section on Einstein’s philosophy of science. Anne Savarese, our editor at Princeton University Press, saw promise in our project, provided valuable suggestions, and made sure the manuscript became a book, and our copyeditor, Karen Verde, caught our infelicities and bloopers. Sara Lerner cheerfully and skillfully guided the book through production. We are grateful to the Press’s readers for giving us input that we hope improves the book’s organization, and for taking valuable time to challenge us on some topics. We also thank Diana Buchwald and the staff at the Einstein Papers Project, especially former editor Osik Moses, for helping with specific questions and leading us to selected photographs and documents; Barbara Wolff at the Einstein Archives for supplying facsimile certificates; and Princeton University Press and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for granting permission to use copyrighted material.