A Student’s Guide to Einstein’s Major Papers, Robert E. Kennedy, Oxford U. Press, New York, 2012. $45.00 (296 pp.). ISBN 978-0-19-969403-7
Physics professors often refer to Albert Einstein’s work when teaching relativity, quantum mechanics, or statistical mechanics. I have never given his original papers to my students to supplement their learning, but that will change. I appreciate the importance of having undergraduates read classic and original physics literature, and I have tried to inspire my experimental physics students by assigning Albert Michelson’s 1880 description of his measurement of the speed of light or Robert Millikan’s 1911 oil-drop paper. I have egged the students on to try and do better than Michelson or Millikan using modern technology.
Some of Einstein’s classic papers could also motivate undergraduates, if the physics were fully explained. For instructors who choose to expose their students to Einstein’s scientific articles, Robert E. Kennedy’s A Student’s Guide to Einstein’s Major Papers will be a welcome supplement. Kennedy focuses on Einstein’s four classic papers published in the annus mirabilis of 1905, his doctoral thesis (published in 1906), and his 1916 general relativity paper.
The original papers, unfortunately, do not appear in the book, though free versions can be found on the internet. With great care, Kennedy explains the papers’ physics and equations and fills in the gaps in Einstein’s derivations. When necessary, he translates Einstein’s equations into modern notation. Kennedy also corrects some misconceptions; he observes, for example, that Einstein presented the equivalence of mass and energy, but did not write it as E = mc2.
The book provides a brief history of Einstein’s life before 1905 and a backdrop of physics history leading up to that remarkable year in physics. It also presents historical background on each paper before commencing with the explanations. The text’s conclusion summarizes Einstein’s contributions to the development of quantum mechanics; however, absent any related Einstein article to work through, that chapter feels out of place.
I know from personal interactions that Kennedy, an emeritus professor at Creighton University in Nebraska, has a deep dedication to physics education. He obviously spent a significant amount of time preparing his book so that readers could fully understand the important physics Einstein introduced. But does Kennedy’s book contribute anything that has not already been covered by Abraham Pais in “Subtle Is the Lord …”: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford University Press, 1982)? Kennedy makes a point of working through practically every equation that appears in the six papers—to some extent, he has created a workbook that will help readers unravel those papers. Pais distills the most important points associated with the important papers, and is far more detailed on Einstein’s history.
The perfect audience for Kennedy’s guide would be physics professors on sabbatical. Most physicists would enjoy it, but working through the physics is time consuming and nontrivial, even if ultimately rewarding. I would be hesitant to give Kennedy’s book to undergraduates, except perhaps in the context of a senior thesis project. A motivated teacher could certainly use it as a tool to help guide students through a reading of a particular paper. However, in my view, only four of the six original papers are appropriate for undergraduates: “On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light,” “On the electrodynamics of moving bodies,” “On the movement of small particles suspended in stationary liquids required by the molecular-kinetic theory of heat,” and “Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy content?” These four papers, with the help of Kennedy’s book, could be very well understood by undergraduates. Einstein’s PhD thesis, “A new determination of molecular dimensions,” would, in my opinion, be too cumbersome for most undergraduates.
Of the several good ways to teach general relativity to undergraduates (see my article with Thomas Moore in Physics Today, June 2012, page 41), I would not consider giving them Einstein’s original 1916 paper to be one. But for students who already have experience with general relativity, reading the original paper along with Kennedy’s explanations would be a wonderful experience. I look forward to presenting some of Einstein’s papers to my students next year, and I will definitely use A Student’s Guide to Einstein’s Major Papers as a resource.
