Alice Calaprice - An Einstein Encyclopedia

AN

EINSTEIN ENCYCLOPEDIA

AN

EINSTEIN ENCYCLOPEDIA

ALICE CALAPRICE, DANIEL KENNEFICK, AND ROBERT SCHULMANN

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 2015 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW

press.princeton.edu

Jacket photographs: Albert Einstein speaks at an event in favor of a Refugee Foundation, Royal Albert Hall, London, 1933 (b/w photo), English photographer, (20th century) / Bridgeman Images. Einstein at the Swiss Federal Patent Office, photo by Lucien Chavan. Photograph of Einstein playing the violin courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute.

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Calaprice, Alice, author.

An Einstein encyclopedia / Alice Calaprice, Daniel Kennefick, and Robert Schulmann.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-691-14174-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Einstein, Albert, 18791955Encyclopedias. 2. PhysicistsBiographyEncyclopedias. 3. Relativity (Physics)HistoryEncyclopedias. 4. PhysicsHistory20th centuryEncyclopedias. I. Kennefick, Daniel, author. II. Schulmann, Robert J., author. III. Title.

QC16.E5C343 2015

530.092dc23

2015008233

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in in Minion Pro

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of Walter Hunziker (19352012), mathematical physicist, unflagging supporter of Einstein research, and steadfast friend

Contents

Preface

To mark the 100th anniversary of Albert Einsteins greatest accomplishmentthe general theory of relativitywe 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 endeavorin 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 readers 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 Einsteins 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: , 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 papersan 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 authors 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.

provides an annotated bibliography of Einsteins publications, listing what we believe are all the most important and representative publications from Einsteins 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, Jzsef Illy, Michel Janssen, Osik Moses, Jrgen Renn, Zeev 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 Einsteins 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 Presss readers for giving us input that we hope improves the books 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.

Chronology