5 9 0 A P P E N D I X C
LECTURES ON RELATIVITY AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
AND THEIR ENGLISH SUMMARIES
The following shorthand notes on Einstein’s first two popular lectures delivered in German
at Princeton University on 9 and 10 May 1921 were taken by a stenographer. The original
plan was to use these notes as the basis for the published text. “A German stenographer is
taking notes of the lectures as they are delivered,” the Princeton Alumni Weekly wrote. “The
plan of procedure is to have her write her notes out in German and then Professor Edwin P.
Adams of the Department of Physics will go over them and check up those scientific por-
tions which may have caused trouble. After Professor Adams has completed this part of the
work, the lectures will be submitted to Professor Einstein for revision and final approval.
When he has returned them, they will be translated into English and published.” Princeton
Alumni Weekly, 11 May 1921, pp. 713–714. On the actual process of preparing the manu-
script that was published, see note 1 to Einstein 1922c (Doc. 71). The stenographer left
spaces in the manuscript (“[ ]”) to indicate formulas and words which were incompre-
hensible. In other places, where whole phrases or sentences seem to be missing, this is in-
dicated by a blank line or half-line. Spaces, blank lines, and half-lines have all been re-
tained. Emendations that are written in an unknown hand have been incorporated.
The typescript for the first lecture, [4 016], consists of 24 unnumbered pages; for the sec-
ond lecture, [4 017], 21 unnumbered pages. Page numbers are provided here in the margin
in square brackets. Headers “May 10th, 1921” typed with the same typewriter on the upper
right-hand margins of pp. 2–9 and 21 of the second typescript are omitted.
Following each of Einstein’s lectures, Adams, who was the translator for Einstein 1922c
(Doc. 71), rose and gave verbal English-language summaries for the audience. The summa-
ries were published in the New York Evening Post, 10 May 1921, p. 7, and 11 May 1921, p.
7, respectively, and are reprinted here following each typescript. Parts of the newpaper ar-
ticles that are not citations from Adams, as well as subtitles added by the reporter, are omit-
ted here.
A P P E N D I X C