Albert Einstein’s Essential Book “The Meaning of Relativity – Including the Generalized Theory of Gravitation”, Signed

The recipient was a young physicist who went on to make a name for himself in the world of physics

“The Meaning of Relativity”, Signed by Einstein on the front free endpaper and dated 1950. 8vo, publisher’s cloth; dust jacket; wear. Third Edition, Princeton, 1950. The book was Einstein’s attempt to make his Theory of Relativity comprehensible to the general public. Einstein gave it to young physicist Mark Heald when the latter was working on his doctorate. We have obtained it directly from the Heald family.

“The Meaning of Relativity” is Einstein’s definitive explanation of his special and general theories of relativity. It was initially written in the early 1920s, a few years after he had elaborated his general theory of relativity. This book is the only place where Einstein offered a comprehensive explanation of the theory that included not only the theory’s technical aspects but also detailed explanations making his work accessible to readers with a certain mathematical knowledge but no familiarity with relativity theory.

“The Meaning of Relativity” reflects not only Einstein’s own efforts but also the involvement of his contemporaries with the theory. He later also enriched “The Meaning of Relativity” with appendixes discussing further developments. Einstein never made another attempt at such an all-encompassing presentation in which he explained and discussed its basic principles and their consequences. That makes this book unique in importance.

The edition offered is the definitive third edition, published in 1950. It includes (as an appendix), the first appearance in a book of Einstein’s important essay “Generalized Theory of Gravitation”, as well as the second appearance of “On the ‘Cosmologic Problem” where Einstein addresses in detail the circumstances of his work on his cosmological constant. This book contains the first accurate publication of his Generalized Theory of Gravitation, with implications for space travel, telescopic observations, signal communication, and our ability to understand phenomenon such as black holes, gravitational waves, and much more.

Provenance:

Mark Heald was a physicist who grew up in Princeton. He graduated from Princeton High School in 1946, and from Oberlin College, as a physics major, in 1950. He continued on to graduate school at Yale University, receiving his doctorate in 1954. Much of his doctoral research was, however, done in Princeton. Through his interest in psychics, he came to be acquainted with Einstein during these years, when Einstein himself was heading the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Heald went on to teach physics at Swarthmore College from 1959-1992.

This is the first signed copy of this book that we have ever had.