4
EINSTEIN'S MANUSCRIPT ON SPECIAL RELATIVITY
On 25
February 1911
Marx
asked
H. A.
Lorentz
to
take
on
the fifth volume,
either
as
its
sole author
or jointly
with
Arnold Sommerfeld
or
Einstein.[6]
Lorentz
declined,
but
expressed
his
willingness to
assist
Sommerfeld
or
Einstein.[7]
The
publisher
then
turned
to Einstein,
who
agreed
to
become
one
of
the
authors of
the
handbook.
Neither
the
invitation
to
Einstein
nor
his
written
acceptance
have been
preserved.
On
8
May
1911,
however, in
a
letter
to
Pieter Zeeman
in
which
he
invited
him to
write
a
con-
tribution
on
the
Zeeman
effect,
Marx mentioned that Einstein
had
agreed to
write
the
part
on
relativity
theory.[8]
Later
he
informed Zeeman that
the
deadline for
the
com-
pletion
of
all
manuscripts
was
1
December
1913.[9]
By
16 February
1914
Marx
had
received Einstein's
manuscript,[10]
and
there
is
internal
evidence, to be
discussed
below,
that Einstein worked
on
the
manuscript
between
early
1912 and
early 1914,
while
the
bulk
of
the
text
was
written in
1912.
III
At
the time, the
only
comparable
reviews of
relativity theory
were
Einstein
1907j
(Vol. 2,
Doc.
47)
and
Laue's textbook
(Laue
1911a),
on
which Einstein commented
early
in 1912:
"His book
on
the
theory
of
relativity
is
a
little
masterpiece,
and
many
things
in it
are
his
intellectual
property."[11]
The book
expounds
and
develops
the
four-dimensional formulation of
relativity
introduced
by
Minkowski,[12]
and
is
far
more
comprehensive
and
technically
detailed than Einstein's
manuscript.
It
seems
likely
that Einstein consulted
not only
the first
but
also the
second edition of Laue's
book,
published
in
1913.[13] Perhaps
the
most significant change
from the first
edition
is
an
added section
on
relativistic
hydrodynamics,
a topic
which concludes Einstein's
manuscript.[14]
Compared
to
Laue's
book,
Einstein's
exposition
puts a
stronger
emphasis
on
the
conceptual development
from Lorentz's electron
theory to
the
theory
of
relativity.
In
agreement
with
Marx's
request,
Einstein's
account
is
self-contained
[6]See
Erich
Marx
to
H. A. Lorentz, 25
February
1911 (NeHR,
Archief
H. A. Lorentz).
The
planned topics
of the fifth
volume
were
electrical
conduction,
atomic
models, and
ether theories.
[7]See the
handwritten
note
by
Lorentz
in the
margin
of
Erich
Marx
to
H. A. Lorentz, 25
February
1911 (NeHR,
Archief
H. A. Lorentz).
[8]See
Erich Marx
to
Pieter Zeeman,
8 May
1911 (NeHR,
Archief
P.
Zeeman).
At
a
later
stage
the
plans
for
the
Handbuch
were
changed,
and the number of
anticipated
volumes
was
increased from five to six.
Einstein's contribution
was
announced for volume
six,
which dealt
with
the
theoretical
aspects
of radiation
physics.
[9]See
Erich Marx to
Pieter
Zeeman, 22
July
1913 (NeHR,
Archief
P. Zeeman).
[10]See
Erich
Marx
to
H. A. Lorentz,
16 February
1914 (NeHR,
Archief
H. A.
Lorentz).
[11]"Sein Buch
über Relativitätstheorie
ist ein Meisterwerkchen, und
manches darin
sein
geistiges Eigentum" (Einstein to
Alfred
Kleiner,
3
April
1912
[Vol. 5,
Doc. 381]).
[12]See Minkowski 1908.
For
a
historical discussion of Minkowski's work and
its
relationship
to
Einstein's,
see
Pyenson 1985,
pp.
81-100. For Einstein's
initial
reaction
to
Sommerfeld's
work
on
the
four-dimensional
formalism,
see
Einstein
to
Arnold
Sommerfeld,
July
1910
(Vol.
5,
Doc.
211).
[13]Laue 1913.
[14]See
Laue
1913, §§36
and
37,
and
§22
of
Doc.
1.
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