5 7 0 D O C . 7 1 P R I N C E T O N L E C T U R E S
Published by Vieweg (Braunschweig, 1922). A manuscript of this document [2 001] is available, writ-
ten on 73 sheets of 28.3 × 21.4 cm, and numbered in the upper right-hand corner. Except [p. 15], all
sheets have writing on one side only. The verso of [p. 15] contains the second half of a footnote start-
ing on [p. 12]. The manuscript bears the title “Fünf Vorlesungen über Relativitätstheorie.” On an ad-
ditional smaller brown piece of paper, in another hand, appears the title “Manuskript der Princetoner
Vorlesung im Mai 1921.” Figures, marginal text (indicating the topics being discussed), and the last
four paragraphs (see note 142) of the published version are not in the manuscript. A second German
edition was published in 1923. Significant variations between the published text and the manuscript
and the second German edition, as well as emendations in the first and subsequent English editions,
published in 1945, 1950, 1953, and 1955, respectively, are noted. Appendixes which were added to
the later English editions will be included in the writings volumes covering the years in which they
were written. The appendix for the second edition of 1945 was entitled “On the Cosmological Prob-
lem.” Another appendix was added for the third edition of 1950, entitled “Generalization of Gravita-
tion Theory,” and revised for the fifth edition of 1955 and retitled “Relativistic Theory of the Non-
symmetric Field.”
[1]Einstein began working on the manuscript in early September 1921 (see Einstein to Paul Ehren-
fest, 1 September 1921) and finished it before 4 January 1922 (see Ilse Einstein to Friedrich Vieweg
& Sohn, 4 January 1922).
The book’s title refers to four lectures given in Princeton in May 1921. In fact, there were five,
given on successive days from 9 to 13 May 1921 as part of the Stafford Little Lectures of Princeton
University. The first two were popular lectures, the other three were more technical. A transcription
of the typescripts of the two popular lectures, made from notes taken by a stenographer at the lectures,
is presented as Appendix C of this volume. The published text, based on Einstein’s manuscript, is a
revised version of the three technical lectures. Einstein’s manuscript is divided into five lectures, but
the first two were combined into one chapter.
For contractual reasons, the German edition could appear only after the English translation had
been published (see Einstein to Maurice Solovine, 14 January and 23 February 1922). However, the
English edition was prepared with the help of a set of page proofs of the German edition (see Paul
Tomlinson of Princeton University Press to Einstein, 14 April 1922). In those instances where the
published German text deviates from the manuscript, the first English edition (Einstein 1922d) some-
times follows the former (the last four paragraphs; see also, e.g., notes 9, 10, 81, and 85) and some-
times the latter (see, e.g., notes 3, 14, 51, 70, and 96).
Summaries of all five lectures by Edwin P. Adams (1878–1956), Professor of Physics at Princeton
University and the translator of the first English edition, appeared in the New York Evening Post (the
first four lectures) and the New York Times (the fifth lecture) a day after the respective lectures. For
summaries of the lectures of 9 and 10 May, see Appendix C. For excerpts for the summaries of the
lectures of 11 and 12 May, see notes 25 and 66; for excerpts from the summary of the lecture of 13
May, see notes 140 and 143.
[2]In the manuscript, “begriffliche” replaces “áelementareñ.”
[3]In the manuscript, the following phrase is interlineated after “sind:” “ohne welche Wissenschaft
nicht möglich ist.” Cf. this statement to those in Einstein 1918j (Doc. 7) and Einstein 1919g (Doc. 28).
[4]Poincaré 1902. See Einstein’s remarks against conventionalism in Einstein 1921c (Doc. 52), pp.
7–10.
[5]For Einstein’s views on the role of geometry in physics, see Einstein 1921c (Doc. 52).
[6]In the manuscript, “grundlegenden” replaces “ágrossenñ.”
[7]In the manuscript, “unabhängig vom Material des Körpers und von seinen Ortsänderungen”
replaces “ákonstantñ.”
[8]See note 82 below on the independence of the shape and size of objects from their own prehis-
tory.
[9]The phrase “und Bezugsräume” is missing in the manuscript.
[10]Instead of “so drückt . . . Form aus,” the manuscript has: “und schreibt man die Bedingung der
Aequivalenz der Gleichungen (2) und (2a) in der Form.”
[11]In the manuscript, the sentence originally continued after the comma: “ásie drücken geome-
trischñ.”