This volume is the first systematic presentation of the work of Albert Einstein, comprising fourteen essays by leading historians and philosophers of science that introduce readers to his work. Following an introduction that places Einstein's work in the context of his life and times, the book opens with essays on the papers of Einstein's 'miracle year', 1905, covering Brownian motion, light quanta, and special relativity, as well as his contributions to early quantum theory and the opposition to his light quantum hypothesis. Further essays relate Einstein's path to the general theory of relativity (1915) and the beginnings of two fields it spawned, relativistic cosmology and gravitational waves. Essays on Einstein's later years examine his unified field theory program and his critique of quantum mechanics. The closing essays explore the relation between Einstein's work and twentieth-century philosophy, as well as his political writings.
This four-volume work represents the most comprehensive documentation and study of the creation of general relativity. Einstein’s 1912 Zurich notebook is published for the first time in facsimile and
In the spring of 1919, two British solar eclipse expeditions confirmed the correctness of general relativity theory and propelled Albert Einstein to instant celebrity. Before this major turning point,
