INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME
4
I
The
writings
in this
volume date from the
beginning
of
1912 to the
spring
of
1914,
the
two
years
before Einstein left
Zurich
for Berlin. While
his
struggle
with the
problems
of
quanta,
rather
than
those
of
relativity,
had dominated
his
work from
1909
through
1911
(see
Volume
3),
he
was now concentrating
his
efforts
on attempting
to construct
a
relativistic
theory
of
gravitation.
Einstein's
efforts would
finally
achieve their
goal
in the autumn
of
1915,
when
he
com-
pleted
his
general
theory
of
relativity.
Three scientific
manuscripts,
printed
here for
the first
time,
provide some
insight
into Einstein's efforts
to
generalize
his
original
relativity
theory
into
a
relativistic
theory
of
gravitation.
The
first is
a
review article
on
the
special
theory
of
relativity
(Doc.
1);
the
second consists of
notes
documenting
Ein-
stein's research
on
gravitation
as
well
as
the
support
he
received from his friend
and former fellow student
at the
Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (ETH),
the mathematician Marcel
Grossmann
(Doc. 10);
and
the
third
manuscript
con-
tains calculations
by
Einstein in collaboration with Michele
Besso,
another
friend from
his
student
days, on
the
problem
of the motion
of
the
perihelion
of
Mercury (Doc.
14).[1]
The three
unpublished manuscripts
document
the
kinds
of
trials
and
errors
that
cannot
be
reconstructed
from
Einstein's
published
papers,
and
in this
way
add
to
our understanding
of
the creation
of
general
relativity.
During
the
period
covered
by
this volume,
Einstein's
professional
status
rose
rapidly.
As 1912
began,
he
was professor
at
the German
University
of
Prague,
a
relative backwater
in scientific
research.
In
the
course
of
that
year,
however,
Einstein declined offers
of
professorships
at the
universities of Utrecht and
Leyden (where
he would
have succeeded
H. A. Lorentz).
He
accepted
instead
a
professorship
in
Zurich,
but
this
time
at
the ETH rather than
the
university.
[1]The
explanation
of
the
observed
anomaly
of
this
motion
was
to become
one
of
the
classical
tests
of
general relativity.
The existence of
the
manuscript
and the
fact that Einstein had
exten-
sively occupied
himself
with this
subject
almost
two
years
before he
published
on
it
have been
previously
unknown.
See
the editorial
note,
"The Einstein-Besso
Manuscript on
the Motion of
the Perihelion
of
Mercury,"
pp.
344-359,
for further discussion.