![]() Cover of the original 1922 edition | |
Author | Albert Einstein |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Publication date | 1922 (original ed.) |
Publication place | United States |
Pages | 200 |
ISBN | 978-0-6911-6408-3 |
OCLC | 884013779 |
Text | The Meaning of Relativity at Wikisource |
Identifiers refer to the 2014 reprint of the 5th edition unless otherwise noted |
The Meaning of Relativity: Four Lectures Delivered at Princeton University, May 1921 is a book published by Princeton University Press in 1922 that compiled the 1921 Stafford Little Lectures at Princeton University, given by Albert Einstein. The lectures were translated into English by Edwin Plimpton Adams. The lectures and the subsequent book were Einstein's last attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of his theory of relativity and is his only book that provides an accessible overview of the physics and mathematics of general relativity. Einstein explained his goal in the preface of the book's German edition by stating he "wanted to summarize the principal thoughts and mathematical methods of relativity theory" and that his "principal aim was to let the fundamentals in the entire train of thought of the theory emerge clearly". [1] Among other reviews, the lectures were the subject of the 2017 book The Formative Years of Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's Princeton Lectures by Hanoch Gutfreund and Jürgen Renn.
The book contains four of Einstein's Stafford Little Lectures that were given at Princeton University in 1921. The lectures follow a series of 1915 publications by Einstein developing the theory of general relativity. [1] [2] During this time, there were still many controversial issues surrounding the theories and he was still defending several of his views. [1] The lectures and the subsequent book were Einstein's last attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of his theory of relativity. [3] It is also his only book that provides an overview of the physics and mathematics of general relativity in a comprehensive manner that was accessible to non-specialists. [4] Einstein explained his goal in the preface of the book's German edition by stating he "wanted to summarize the principal thoughts and mathematical methods of relativity theory" and that his "principal aim was to let the fundamentals in the entire train of thought of the theory emerge clearly". [1]
On December 27, 1949, The New York Times ran a story titled "New Einstein theory gives a master key to the universe" [5] in reaction to the new appendix in the book's fifth edition in which Einstein expounded upon his latest unification efforts. [6] Einstein had nothing to do with the article and subsequently refused to speak with any reporters on the matter; he reportedly used the message "[c]ome back and see me in twenty years" to brush off their inquiries. [6]
The book is made of four lectures. The first is titled "Space and Time in Pre-Relativity Physics". The second lecture is titled The Theory of Special Relativity and discusses the special theory of relativity. The third and fourth lectures cover the general theory of relativity in two parts. Einstein added an appendix to update the book for its second edition, which published in 1945. [7] A second appendix was later added for the fifth edition as well, in 1955, which discusses the nonsymmetric field. [7] The second appendix contains Einstein's attempts at a unified field theory. [6]
The book has received many reviews since its initial publication. The first edition of the book was reviewed by Nature in 1923. [8] Other early versions of the book were reviewed by George Yuri Rainich in 1946, [9] as well as Abraham H. Taub, [10] Philip Morrison, [11] and I. M. Levitt [12] in 1950. Reviews for the book's fifth edition include a short announcement in 1955 that called the book "a well-known classic". [13] A 1956 review of the fifth edition summarizes its publication history and contents and closes by stating "Einstein's little book then serves as an excellent tying-together of loose ends and as a broad survey of the subject." [7]
Among other references to the book, a 2005 column of The Physics Teacher , included the work in a list of books "by and about Einstein that all physics teachers should have" and "should have immediate access to", [14] while a 2019 review of another work opened by stating: "Every teacher of General Relativity depends heavily on two texts: one, the massive ‘Gravitation’ by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, the second the diminutive ‘The Meaning of Relativity’ by Einstein." [4] The Meaning of Relativity is the focus of a 2017 book, The Formative Years of Relativity by Hanoch Gutfreund and Jürgen Renn, [1] [4] [3] which described The Meaning of Relativity as "Einstein's definitive exposition of his special and general theories of relativity". [15]
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalizes special relativity and refines Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time or four-dimensional spacetime. In particular, the curvature of spacetime is directly related to the energy and momentum of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of second order partial differential equations.
The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in the absence of gravity. General relativity explains the law of gravitation and its relation to the forces of nature. It applies to the cosmological and astrophysical realm, including astronomy.
Max Theodor Felix von Laue was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.
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The history of special relativity consists of many theoretical results and empirical findings obtained by Albert A. Michelson, Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others. It culminated in the theory of special relativity proposed by Albert Einstein and subsequent work of Max Planck, Hermann Minkowski and others.
General relativity is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915, with contributions by many others after 1915. According to general relativity, the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from the warping of space and time by those masses.
Albert Einstein presented the theories of special relativity and general relativity in publications that either contained no formal references to previous literature, or referred only to a small number of his predecessors for fundamental results on which he based his theories, most notably to the work of Henri Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz for special relativity, and to the work of David Hilbert, Carl F. Gauss, Bernhard Riemann, and Ernst Mach for general relativity. Subsequently, claims have been put forward about both theories, asserting that they were formulated, either wholly or in part, by others before Einstein. At issue is the extent to which Einstein and various other individuals should be credited for the formulation of these theories, based on priority considerations.
Ludwik Silberstein was a Polish-American physicist who helped make special relativity and general relativity staples of university coursework. His textbook The Theory of Relativity was published by Macmillan in 1914 with a second edition, expanded to include general relativity, in 1924.
John Stachel is an American physicist and philosopher of science.
Gravitation is a widely adopted textbook on Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, written by Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and John Archibald Wheeler. It was originally published by W. H. Freeman and Company in 1973 and reprinted by Princeton University Press in 2017. It is frequently abbreviated MTW. The cover illustration, drawn by Kenneth Gwin, is a line drawing of an apple with cuts in the skin to show the geodesics on its surface.
Bruria Kaufman was an Israeli American theoretical physicist. She contributed to Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, to statistical physics, where she used applied spinor analysis to rederive the result of Lars Onsager on the partition function of the two-dimensional Ising model, and to the study of the Mössbauer effect, on which she collaborated with John von Neumann and Harry Lipkin.
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Criticism of the theory of relativity of Albert Einstein was mainly expressed in the early years after its publication in the early twentieth century, on scientific, pseudoscientific, philosophical, or ideological bases. Though some of these criticisms had the support of reputable scientists, Einstein's theory of relativity is now accepted by the scientific community.
Relativity: The Special and the General Theory began as a short paper and was eventually published as a book written by Albert Einstein with the aim of explaining the theory of relativity.
Jürgen Renn is a German historian of science, and since 1994 Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.
Hanoch Gutfreund is the Andre Aisenstadt Chair in theoretical physics and was the president at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prior to his presidency, he was a professor at the university.
Albert Einstein's discovery of the gravitational field equations of general relativity and David Hilbert's almost simultaneous derivation of the theory using an elegant variational principle, during a period when the two corresponded frequently, has led to numerous historical analyses of their interaction. The analyses came to be called a priority dispute.
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