The Road to Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein’s “The Foundations of General Relativity”

To mark the centennial of Einstein’s 1915 publication of his theory of general relativity, this handsomely illustrated volume presents a facsimile of his entire manuscript. Theoretical physicists Gutfreund and Renn annotate Einstein’s original handwritten paper (presented on the verso) and conclude with a full English translation of the paper. In 1905, Einstein published his special theory of relativity, which “challenged the idea of light as a wave, gave striking proof for the existence of atoms, led to a new understanding of space and time, and identified mass as a form of energy.” But as the editors point out, Einstein realized his work remained incomplete, since Newtonian conceptions of gravity did not work within the new frame. Special relativity worked for non-accelerating frames of reference, but the “laws of physics must... apply to systems of reference in any kind of motion.” The mathematics of the general theory proved exceedingly complex even for Einstein, who relied on colleagues for assistance, but the result was one of humankind’s greatest achievements. Einstein aficionados will add this to their libraries, but readers unfamiliar with college-level physics will have a rough time. (May)