FIRST APPEARANCE OF EINSTEIN'S FIRST SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATION AND OF PLANCK'S REVISED QUANTUM THEORY

(EINSTEIN, Albert) (PLANCK, Max). Annalen der Physik… Vierte Folge. Band 4. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1901. Octavo, early 20th-century red cloth. $2000.

First edition of Einstein's first published paper, a study of capillary action as connected to the atomic weight of different liquids, accompanied by the first appearance of Planck's groundbreaking second paper on quantum theory, in the 1901 edition of the Annalen der Physik, “one of the most remarkable volumes in the whole of scientific literature” (Max Born).

Shortly after receiving his teaching diploma, Einstein submitted his first paper on physics—"Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen," an attempt to explain the capillary effect of fluid motion via molecular forces—to Annalen der Physik. "Although he later called this essay 'worthless,' it is interesting from a biographical perspective. Not only is it Einstein's first published paper, but it shows him heartily embracing an important premise—one not yet fully accepted—that would be at the core of much of his work over the next five years: that molecules (and their constituent atoms) actually exist, and that many natural phenomena can be explained by analyzing how these particles interact with one another" (Isaacson, Einstein, 56). Also present in this volume of Annalen der Physik is the first printing of Planck's important revised presentation on quantum theory, "Ueber das Gesetz der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum," in which he fully explained for the first time the derivation of the Planck constant; this paper, along with his "Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum" of the previous year, "challenged the notion of the continuity of nature… The quantum theory has affected virtually every branch of physics" (PMM). Another Planck paper is additionally present, "Ueber die Elementarquanta der Materie und der Elektricität." Volume with in-text illustrations, eight plates (one color-printed) and one folding chart. Einstein: Boni, Russ & Laurence 1. Planck: PMM 391b; see also Heralds of Science, 166. Ex-library, with stamps to front free endpaper and pocket on back pastedown; evidence of bookplate removal. Blindstamp of Dr. Horatio Burt Williams, one of the earliest clinical electrophysiologists in America.

Internally clean; cloth lightly worn at extremities, spine slightly toned with small mark at foot. A very good copy of this scarce, important volume.