The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 2: The Swiss Years: Writings, 1900-1909 (Original texts) [Hardcover]

Albert Einstein (Author), John Stachel (Editor), David C. Cassidy (Editor), Jürgen Renn (Editor), Robert Schulmann (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1990 | ISBN-10: 0691085269 | ISBN-13: 978-0691085265

This volume of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein contains the scientific work Einstein published during the first decade of his career, and includes some of the most significant achievements of twentieth-century physics. The first paper was written in 1900 by the twenty-one-year-old Einstein, newly graduated from the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School, or ETH, in Zurich and still searching in vain for a job. The last paper in this volume is the text of an invited lecture given in 1909 to a major scientific meeting by Einstein after he was appointed to his first academic post at the University of Zurich. He had already been recognized as an important theoretical physicist on the basis of the work reprinted here, particularly the three masterpieces that appeared in quick succession during 1905, Einstein's year of miracles. In one of these papers Einstein showed how one could finally confirm the ancient view that matter is composed of discrete atoms, and even measure the numbers and masses of these atoms. In a second paper, which even he referred to as "very revolutionary," he argued that the observed properties of thermal radiation suggest that it consists not of waves, but rather of localized particles of energy which he called energy quanta. The third and most famous paper set forth the special theory of relativity, solving some long-standing difficulties, but requiring a significant change in our understanding of those basic concepts, space and time.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 696 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (February 1, 1990)
• Language: German
• ISBN-10: 0691085269
• ISBN-13: 978-0691085265
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,163,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, February 24, 2006

By 

Lewis E. Wedgewood (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 2: The Swiss Years: Writings, 1900-1909 (Paperback)

Translations of Einstein's papers are scattered around, but are generally hard to find. This volume brings together a decade of Einstien's scientific papers translated into English. The editors have chosen to leave in the mistakes and typographical errors and refer the reader to the documentary edition (which I believe can be purchased directly from Princeton University Press, but not on Amazon). This documentary edition is a printing of the original German articles with extensive introductions and footnotes in English. If you are not comfortable reading technical papers auf Deutsch and choose this English version over the documentary edition, then you lose the benefit of the footnotes. Even that benefit is limited. I worked through the details of Einstein's thesis with the footnotes from the documentary edition. Several errors in the thesis are not noted and there are some errors in the footnotes themselves. The collection contains several early papers of Einstein that I have never before seen translated. There are also reviews of articles which Einstein wrote on other papers. These reviews will be of limited interest for most readers. Overall, it is a great pleasure to see how Einstein originally presented his great works on relativity, Brownian motion, photoelectric effect, the dimension of molecules, etc.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Einstein Gold (or God) Age, April 21, 2000

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"novellino" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 2: The Swiss Years: Writings, 1900-1909 (Original texts) (Hardcover)

All the Einstein life is very intersting! For the 20st centuryworld life the 1900-1909 Einstein period is the apex of his scientificcontributions, specially for three papers: those about the Brownian Movement, the Photoelectric Effects and Eletromagnetic Effects when there is a referencial change. All three papers brought to ous news interpretations of those phenomena and revealed the Einstein interpretation capacity of visible and not-visible world. The paper about Photoelectric Effects presented a new quantum views of ligh and material interaction while the Eletromagnetic Effects showed the principles of Special Relativity, a theme that transverse the 20st century and arrive at 21st century without popular technology applications. This book brings a opened, stimulant, and helpful explanations - great lectures - about the principals Einstein ideas. Maybe this book is the first to point closely the life and thinking of a science men.