8
EINSTEIN'S LECTURE NOTES
But there
are some
significant
differences.
The
most
important
of
these
is
that
Einstein
later
left out
the
first part
on
kinetic
gas theory
and concentrated
on
statistical
mechanics,
the
exposition
of which
was
preceded
by an
introductory
discussion of
Lagrange's
and Hamilton's formulations of classical
mechanics.[29]
Einstein's
own
lecture
notes,
together
with the students'
notes still
available from the Berlin
years,
give an
impression
of how the
original
course on
kinetic
theory
of heat
gradually
changed
from
an
extended
presentation
of Boltzmann's
Gastheorie,
supplemented by
elements of statistical
mechanics,
into
a
lecture
course
devoted
only
to
statistical
mechanics. This
development is
paralleled
by
the
emergence
of statistical mechanics
as an
independent
lecture
subject
at
German-language
universities[30]
and
by
the
publication
in
the German
language
of
a
number of
independent
treatments
of this
subject[31]
in
the
years following
the
appearance
of
the
German translation of Gibbs's
Elementary Principles in
Statistical Mechanics
in
1905.[32]
IV
Einstein's lecture
notes
on
electricity
and
magnetism (Doc.
11)
most
likely
date
from
the winter semester
1910/11,
when
he
lectured
on
this
subject
at
the
University
of
Zurich.[33]
The
strongest
evidence for this
dating is
the
fact
that
the notebook
con-
taining
Einstein's
notes
bears the
following inscription
in
Einstein's hand: "Introduc-
tion
to
the
Theory
of
Electricity
and
Magnetism. Zurich,
winter
semester
1910-11"
("Einführung
in die
Theorie der Elektrizität und
Magnetismus.
Zürich,
Wintersemes-
ter
1910-11").
The
only
other
course
Einstein
ever
gave
on
electricity
and
magnetism
was
given
at
the ETH
during
the
winter
semester
1913/14.
Lecture
notes
for
this
course by
two
of
Einstein's
students,
Eduard Sidler and Walter
Dällenbach,
have been
preserved.
Comparison
of
these
notebooks and Einstein's
own
notes
shows
that, although
in
the
two
courses
essentially
the
same
topics
are
treated, in
more or
less
the
same
order,
there
are
also
a
number of instances
in
which
a
different
approach is
taken
or
different
[29]For
this
exposition
Einstein
may
have used his mechanics
notes;
see
the comment
on
[p.
112]
of
Doc.
1.
[30]See,
e.g.,
the curricula of
the
physical, mathematical,
and chemical institutes of German–
language
universities,
as
published
in
the
Physikalische Zeitschrift
for
the
years
of
Einstein's
own
lecturing,
for
details
on
the
growing
number of
courses explicitly
devoted to statistical
mechanics.
[31]See,
e.g.,
Ehrenfest
and
Ehrenfest 1911,
Wassmuth 1915
(which
is
in Einstein's
personal
library),
and Hertz, P. 1916.
[32]See Gibbs
1902,
1905.
Einstein did
not
know Gibbs's book when he
published his
own
articles
on
statistical
physics; see
Einstein 1902b
(Vol. 2,
Doc.
3),
1903
(Vol. 2,
Doc.
4),
1904
(Vol.
2,
Doc.
5).
By 1910,
however,
he
was
certainly acquainted
with
it; see
Einstein
1909b
(Vol. 2,
Doc.
56),
p.
186,
fn.
3,
Einstein
1911c (Doc.
10),
and Vol.
2,
the editorial
note,
"Einstein
on
the
Foundations of Statistical
Physics,"
p.
44.
[33]He
lectured
before
an
audience of
sixteen
students and
six
auditors
(Kontrollbücher
über
die
Honorargebühren, W.S.
1910/11,
SzZU, Kassa-Archiv).
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