lvi EDITORIAL
METHOD
Authors and dates
of
known but unavailable items
are
cited,
and
any
extant,
important excerpts
from the
original are printed.
Einstein’s
postscripts
that
serve merely
to
extend
greetings,
have
no independent
character,
or are
appended
to letters
by
other
authors
are merely
abstracted in the
Calendar.
In this volume
we
have introduced
a policy
of
prudent selectivity,
which will
also
be
applied
in future volumes. Einstein became Director
of
the Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute
of
Physics
(KWI)
in
October 1917.
All
significant correspondence
dealing
with
the
institute’s
start-up phase, extending
from
spring
1917 until
spring
1918,
except
for two
cover
letters to Einstein
with
enclosures
informing
him of
financial
matters,
are
included. Letters with
two
individuals who
played an important part
in
defining
the nature
of
Einstein’s
KWI-Erwin
Freundlich and
Peter
Debye-are
given
preference
in this selection. All
correspondence
with
Freundlich
is
included,
whereas
only
the two most
significant
letters to
Debye are
presented
as
texts.
Routine financial and administrative
exchanges
with
Einstein,
in
particular
in his
capacity
as
Director of
the
KWI
as
well
as
applications
or
solicitations to
him, are
omitted but calendared.
Unless
they
have
particular
significance
in
understanding
Einstein’s
deliberations
or actions,
all letters to and from
Einstein
as a
member
of
the board
of
directors
of
the KWI, or
from
him
to
the board
of
trustees and
to
other
members
of
the
board of
directors
of
the
KWI,
are
abstracted in the Calendar.
In the
case
of
texts
or
text
fragments,
for
which
we
have
transcriptions
but where
the
dating
ascription
conflicts with the content
of
the document in
question,
exist-
ence
of
the text
is
noted
in the
Calendar
and not included
as a
text.
About
seventy
items in the Einstein Archive
are
of
a
fragmentary
nature
and in
most
cases are
datable
only by
decade.
At
the end
of
Einstein’s Berlin
period
(1933),
the editors
will,
in the last
Correspondence
volume
of
that
period, provide
a
separate
itemized
listing
of
these drafts and
notes.
ESTABLISHMENT OF TEXTS
It is
our policy
to
work
initially
from
a
photocopy
of
a manuscript text,
and then to
perfect our
transcription
against
the
original,
if
available. Most
of
the
original
texts
for
Volume
1
were
located in Switzerland and
Israel,
making
it
possible
for
the
edi-
tors to
implement
a
policy
of
perfecting
all
transcriptions
against
the
originals.
In
some
cases, however,
we
have had to
refer
to
photocopies
of
manuscript
texts with-
out
perfecting our transcription against
the
original.
For
example, we were
not
able
to
gain access
to the Besso
Family
Archive in Geneva.