Albert Einstein: Lecture Notes for Courses on Special Relativity at the University of Berlin and the University of Zurich, Winter Semester 1918-1919. Berlin and Zurich, 11 October 1918 - second half of February 1919.

Archival Call No. 3-9.

Published in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 7, Doc. 12, pp. 88-100.

Original (German)		Full Resolution

This is a page from one of Einstein's lecture notebooks on his special theory of relativity. These notes for a course on relativity at the University of Berlin are highly fragmentary. Nevertheless they provide helpful clues with regard to subtle changes in his technical approach to the subject of relativity. After 1919, Einstein's scientific publications on general relativity ceased almost completely while he embarked on the project of explaining his theory to a wider audience. The page depicted here contains an entry for November 9, 1918, the day on which the German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated from his throne. Einstein wrote: "[Lecture] cancelled due to revolution." With the sudden collapse of Germany's imperial regime, soldiers' and workers' councils advocated radical changes. Just four days later, on 13 November, Einstein addressed a crowd of over a thousand at a public meeting of the Bund "Neues Vaterland." (the "New Fatherland" Alliance. Calling himself an "old democrat" who did not need "to unlearn" political habits, Einstein declared that "all true democrats must stand guard lest the old class tyranny of the right be replaced by a class tyranny of the left". Einstein vigorously promoted democratic and liberal causes, an attitude shared by relatively few of his colleagues.