Albert Einstein THE COLLECTED PAPERS OF. Four Lectures on the Theory of Relativity, Held at Princeton University in May 1921 REPRINTED FROM: VOLUME 7

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1 REPRINTED FROM: THE COLLECTED PAPERS OF Albert Einstein VOLUME 7 THE BERLIN YEARS: WRITINGS, Michel Janssen, Robert Schulmann, József Illy, Christoph Lehner, and Diana Kormos Buchwald EDITORS Daniel Kennefick, A. J. Kox, and David Rowe ASSOCIATE EDITORS R. Hirschmann, O. Moses, A. Mynttinen, A. Pringle, and R. Fountain EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS DOC. 71 Four Lectures on the Theory of Relativity, Held at Princeton University in May 1921 (pp ; 570) Princeton University Press 2002

2 496 DOC. 71 PRINCETON LECTURES 71. Four Lectures on the Theory of Relativity, Held at Princeton University in May 1921 [Einstein 1922c] Manuscript completed before 4 January Dated January 1922 Published 1922 by Vieweg (Braunschweig)

3 DOC. 71 PRINCETON LECTURES 497

4 498 DOC. 71 PRINCETON LECTURES

5 DOC. 71 PRINCETON LECTURES 499 [1]

6 500 DOC. 71 PRINCETON LECTURES

7 DOC. 71 PRINCETON LECTURES 501 [2] [3] [4] [5]

8 502 DOC. 71 PRINCETON LECTURES [6] [7] [8] [9]

9 570 DOC. 71 PRINCETON LECTURES Published by Vieweg (Braunschweig, 1922). A manuscript of this document [2 001] is available, written on 73 sheets of cm, and numbered in the upper right-hand corner. Except [p. 15], all sheets have writing on one side only. The verso of [p. 15] contains the second half of a footnote starting on [p. 12]. The manuscript bears the title Fünf Vorlesungen über Relativitätstheorie. On an additional smaller brown piece of paper, in another hand, appears the title Manuskript der Princetoner Vorlesung im Mai Figures, marginal text (indicating the topics being discussed), and the last four paragraphs (see note 142) of the published version are not in the manuscript. A second German edition was published in Significant variations between the published text and the manuscript and the second German edition, as well as emendations in the first and subsequent English editions, published in 1945, 1950, 1953, and 1955, respectively, are noted. Appendixes which were added to the later English editions will be included in the writings volumes covering the years in which they were written. The appendix for the second edition of 1945 was entitled On the Cosmological Problem. Another appendix was added for the third edition of 1950, entitled Generalization of Gravitation Theory, and revised for the fifth edition of 1955 and retitled Relativistic Theory of the Nonsymmetric Field. [1] Einstein began working on the manuscript in early September 1921 (see Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, 1 September 1921) and finished it before 4 January 1922 (see Ilse Einstein to Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, 4 January 1922). The book s title refers to four lectures given in Princeton in May In fact, there were five, given on successive days from 9 to 13 May 1921 as part of the Stafford Little Lectures of Princeton University. The first two were popular lectures, the other three were more technical. A transcription of the typescripts of the two popular lectures, made from notes taken by a stenographer at the lectures, is presented as Appendix C of this volume. The published text, based on Einstein s manuscript, is a revised version of the three technical lectures. Einstein s manuscript is divided into five lectures, but the first two were combined into one chapter. For contractual reasons, the German edition could appear only after the English translation had been published (see Einstein to Maurice Solovine, 14 January and 23 February 1922). However, the English edition was prepared with the help of a set of page proofs of the German edition (see Paul Tomlinson of Princeton University Press to Einstein, 14 April 1922). In those instances where the published German text deviates from the manuscript, the first English edition (Einstein 1922d) sometimes follows the former (the last four paragraphs; see also, e.g., notes 9, 10, 81, and 85) and sometimes the latter (see, e.g., notes 3, 14, 51, 70, and 96). Summaries of all five lectures by Edwin P. Adams ( ), Professor of Physics at Princeton University and the translator of the first English edition, appeared in the New York Evening Post (the first four lectures) and the New York Times (the fifth lecture) a day after the respective lectures. For summaries of the lectures of 9 and 10 May, see Appendix C. For excerpts for the summaries of the lectures of 11 and 12 May, see notes 25 and 66; for excerpts from the summary of the lecture of 13 May, see notes 140 and 143. [2] In the manuscript, begriffliche replaces elementare. [3] In the manuscript, the following phrase is interlineated after sind: ohne welche Wissenschaft nicht möglich ist. Cf. this statement to those in Einstein 1918j (Doc. 7) and Einstein 1919g (Doc. 28). [4] Poincaré See Einstein s remarks against conventionalism in Einstein 1921c (Doc. 52), pp [5] For Einstein s views on the role of geometry in physics, see Einstein 1921c (Doc. 52). [6] In the manuscript, grundlegenden replaces grossen. [7] In the manuscript, unabhängig vom Material des Körpers und von seinen Ortsänderungen replaces konstant. [8] See note 82 below on the independence of the shape and size of objects from their own prehistory. [9] The phrase und Bezugsräume is missing in the manuscript. [10] Instead of so drückt... Form aus, the manuscript has: und schreibt man die Bedingung der Aequivalenz der Gleichungen (2) und (2a) in der Form. [11] In the manuscript, the sentence originally continued after the comma: sie drücken geometrisch.