Zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie [with:] Zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie (Nachtrag). Offprint from Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften XLIV, November 4, 1915 & XLVI, November 11, 1915

EINSTEIN, Albert

Published by Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1915

EINSTEIN'S COMPLETION OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY. First editions, very rare offprint, of the first two of the papers published in November 1915 that document Einstein's final version of the general theory of relativity. "In the half century and more of Einstein's work in science, one discovery stands above all as his greatest achievement. It is his general theory of relativity" (Norton). "There was difficulty reconciling the Newtonian theory of gravitation with its instantaneous propagation of forces with the requirements of special relativity; and Einstein working on this difficulty was led to a generalization of relativity - which was probably the greatest scientific discovery that was ever made" (Dirac, quoted in Chandrasekhar, p. 3). Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) showed that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial (i.e., non-accelerating) frames of reference. It was then natural to ask whether it was possible to extend this principle of relativity to the more general case of frames of reference in arbitrary states of motion. This problem became linked to a theory of gravitation with Einstein's 'equivalence principle' of 1907, according to which the effects of gravity are locally equivalent to those of accelerated motion. Einstein's first steps towards a geometrical theory of gravitation were taken in August 1912, when his friend Marcel Grossmann provided the necessary mathematical tools. "Some time between August 10 and August 16, it became clear to Einstein that Riemannian geometry is the correct mathematical tool for what we now call general relativity theory. The impact of this abrupt realization was to change his outlook on physics and physical theory for the rest of his life" (Pais, p. 210). The resulting 'Entwurf' theory (1913) had much in common with the final theory of 1915, but based on a fallacious argument Einstein abandoned the requirement that the theory should be 'generally-covariant', i.e., that arbitrary frames of reference should be allowed. "After three years of fruitless peregrinations, the revelation came to Einstein that he had been constantly on the wrong track, although in 1913 he had been so near to the right solution" (Lanczos, p. 211). On November 4, 1915 he presented to a plenary session of the Prussian Academy a new version of general relativity, 'Zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie,' "based on the postulate of covariance with respect to transformations with determinant 1", and stated that he had "completely lost confidence" in the 'Entwurf' equations. On November 18, he published his calculation of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury based on the new theory: its agreement with observation confirmed that the theory was correct (the Entwurf theory predicted half the observed value of the precession). "In June 1905, while still a patent examiner in Bern, Einstein submitted his famous work on the electrodynamics of moving bodies to the Annalen der Physik. This work contained his special theory of relativity, in which he asserted the equivalence of all inertial frames of reference as a fundamental postulate of physics. The question which then naturally arose was whether it was possible to extend this principle of relativity to the more general case of frames of reference in arbitrary states of motion. But he could find no workable basis for such an extension, until he tried to incorporate gravitation into his new special theory of relativity for a review article in 1907 ['Uber das Relativitätsprinzip und die ausdemselben gezogenen Folgerungen,' Jahrbuch der Radioaktivitat und Elektronik 4 (1907), 411-62]. The difficulties of this task led him to a new principle, later to be called the 'principle of equivalence.' "On the basis of the fact that all bodies fall alike in a gravitational field, Einstein postulated the complete physical equivalence of a homogeneous gravitational field and a uniform acceleration of the frame of reference. This extended the princip. Seller Inventory # 5863

Bibliographic Details

Title: Zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie [with:] ...
Publisher: Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin
Publication Date: 1915
Edition: First edition.