INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME
4
xvii
notes
on
gravitation, covering
the
period
of his
collaboration
with
Grossmann
from
the
summer
of
1912 to
the
publication
of their
joint paper
and
published
here
as
Doc.
10, are an
especially important
source.
Attempts to
understand
the
covariance
properties
of
the
new
theory, attempts
to
relate
it
to empirical data,
and
efforts
to
convince
his
colleagues
dominated
Einstein's activities before
his
departure
for Berlin
in the
spring
of
1914. At
the
time,
no
empirical
results
on
the
gravitational bending
of
light or
the
grav-
itational redshift
were
available, and
Einstein's
attempt,
undertaken
with the
help
of
Besso, to
explain
the
perihelion
advance of
Mercury on
the
basis of
the
new
theory
of
gravitation
failed.
The lack of
empirical support
for
Einstein
and
Grossmann's
generalized
theory
of
relativity
became
even more
noticeable
when,
in
1913,
Gunnar
Nordström
published
a
special
relativistic scalar
theory
of
gravitation.[6]
This
theory
avoided earlier
objections
by
Einstein
to such
theories
and thus
was a
serious
competitor.
Einstein discussed Nordström's
theory
as
well
as
the Ein-
stein-Grossmann
theory
in the
masterful lecture
he
gave
at the 1913
meeting
of
the
Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher
und
Arzte in
Vienna
and
came
to
the
conclusion that
only experience
could decide between
the
two
(Doc. 17).
Nordström's
theory
turned
out to
be
more
than
a
competitor
for
the
Einstein-
Grossmann
theory.
In
a
joint paper
with
Adriaan Fokker
(Doc. 28),
Einstein
showed that
it
could
be
formulated within
the
same
mathematical framework
of
tensor
calculus
and
that Nordström's
simpler theory
served
to
illuminate
the
essential
conceptual
features of
the
application
of
this
framework
to
a
theory
of
gravitation.
IV
The unfamiliar
approach
that Einstein took
in his
search for
a
theory
of
grav-
itation made
his
work controversial
at
first.
Einstein
expected
little else:
Even
before
the
publication
of
his
joint
work with Grossmann
he had
written
to
Paul
Ehrenfest that
he
expected
"a
murmur
of
indignation to
go
through
the
ranks
of
colleagues
when
the
paper
appears."[7]
Even
his
future
colleagues
in Berlin,
Max
Planck
and Max
von
Laue,
who had
themselves
made
important
contri-
butions
to the
development
of
relativity,
remained
skeptical
in
their
responses
to
Einstein's
recent work.
Einstein,
on
his
part,
used
every
occasion
to
expound
[6]See
Nordström 1913b.
[7]"dass
ein Murmeln der
Entrüstung
[du]rch
die Reihen der
Fachgenossen gehen
wird,
wenn
die Arbeit
erscheint...."
See
Einstein
to Paul Ehrenfest, 28
May
1913
(Vol. 5,
Doc. 441).