Albert Einstein may be the most famous scientist of the 20th Century, and now his professional and personal papers are available online for the first time.
The Digital Einstein archive allows readers to view Einstein's writings on physics, politics, love and more.
The collection of papers is divided into 13 series, each available with an English translation. Currently, letters and writings are available up to 1921, along with letters as late as 1923.
In one of the earliest personal notes in the series of papers, the 22-year-old physicist delights in the birth of his daughter, Kieserl. The letter, addressed to his future wife, Mileva Marić, is filled with questions about the new arrival's health, looks, and behavior. He also asks the new mother to create a drawing of the child "[w]hen you feel a little better."
Even in 1915, as he published the General Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein was opining about the underlying social causes of the First World War, which he blamed on aggressive male behavior. He also compared the "War to End All Wars" to a juvenile conflict he witnessed as a child.
"I will never forget [with] what [bloody and] honest hatred the schoolmates of my age felt for years against the first-graders of a school in a neighboring street. Innumerable fistfights occurred, resulting in many a hole in the heads of those little striplings. Who could doubt that vendetta and dueling spring from such feelings?" Albert Einstein wrote in My Opinion on the War.
Later in the collection, Einstein tells of some of his challenges of fame facing him. It was this discomfort with his public persona that drove Einstein to attempt to ensure his body would not be enshrined.
When Albert Einstein passed away on April 18, 1955, he left specific instructions that his remains, including his brain were to be cremated, and the ashes scattered. This, he believed, would prevent people in the future from having a central location from which to participate in what he considered idolatry. Instead, the pathologist on duty when the physicist died stole Einstein's brain, without permission from the scientist or his family. The act was uncovered a few days later, and the famed physicist's son, Hans Albert, gave tacit approval to the action, provided study of the brain would directly benefit science.
Although Albert Einstein would likely have approved of his scientific papers being made available to the public, questions remain over whether this private person would have wanted love letters made available to the masses. But, the fact that people still want to view this material near 60 years after his death reveal the undying legacy of the scientist.
The Digital Einstein collection may be viewed on the Princeton University Web site.
