THE IMPACT OF EINSTEIN'S GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY "UPON 20TH-CENTURY SCIENCE AND THOUGHT CAN HARDLY BE OVERSTATED": MEANING OF RELATIVITY, EINSTEIN'S "DEFINITIVE EXPOSITION OF HIS SPECIAL AND GENERAL THEORIES OF RELATIVITY," AN EXTRAORDINARY COPY IN THE ORIGINAL DUST JACKET

EINSTEIN, Albert. The Meaning of Relativity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1923. Octavo, original navy cloth, original dust jacket.

First American edition, his first book published in America, of Einstein's historic Princeton lectures, issued mere weeks after the English edition—"the paradigmatic text of this period… in which the theory essentially received the structure in which it later became one of the pillars of modern physics"—an especially fine copy in the original dust jacket.

"In the course of a single decade, Einstein discovered special and then general relativity, and in so doing overturned the conceptions of space and time that our species had held for thousands of years" (Brian Greene). The day Einstein delivered the first of these revolutionary lectures at Princeton in May 1921, "the lecture hall, one of the biggest in the university, was filled to bursting… For those unable to follow German, a member of the physics department gave an English summary at the end of each lecture" (Fölsing, 503). "The Meaning of Relativity, also known as Four Lectures of Relativity, is Einstein's definitive exposition of his special and general theories of relativity… These were the formative years of relativity in which the theory essentially received the structure in which it later became one of the pillars of modern physics. The Meaning of Relativity is the paradigmatic text of this period… he never made another attempt at such an all-encompassing presentation in which he painstakingly motivated, explained and discussed its basic principles and their consequences" (Gutfreund & Renn, Formative Years, 3).

Together with these lectures, Einstein's work "is so large and varied… that a scientist who tries to trace it would be hard put to know where to start" (Simmons, Scientific 100, 9-10). The impact of Einstein's general theory of relativity "upon 20th-century science and thought can hardly be overstated" (Norman 695). "Einstein began working on the 73-page manuscript of the Princeton lectures in early September… He completed the manuscript in early January [1922] and sent it to the German publisher Friedrich Viewig & Sohn on January 9, 1922… On February 20, 1922, Einstein was able to dispatch a letter and the German language page proofs to Oswald Veblin, professor of mathematics at Princeton. He asked that they be transmitted for translation to Edwin P. Adams, professor of physics at Princeton… By December 1922, the final proofs of the German edition had been printed and sent to Ilse Einstein for review… Documents reveal that, at the same time, Princeton University Press and Methuen collaborated during all book production steps, including its printing. An index card at Princeton University Press gives precise information: the book… carried the publication date of January 12, 1923, while its printing by Aberdeen University Press and its copyright were registered as 1922. The same book had been produced for Methuen by the same printers and must have been released only a few weeks earlier in the UK [1922]" (Buchwald, Foreword, Formative Years, xi-xii). English translation by Edwin Plimpton Adams. With four diagrams and numerous in-text equations. See Boni 121; Fölsing 1921f; Norman 697.

Only faintest foxing to rare dust jacket. A fine copy.