Einstein Explains His New Theories
Complete issue of New York Times for Sunday, February 3, 1929, containing a “Special Features” section headed “Einstein Explains His New Theories,” with an article by Einstein on “Field Theories, Old and New,” summarizing the background of relativity theory and introducing his proposed unification of gravity and electromagnetism, which had been published in Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften just two weeks earlier.
The Times’s willingnesss to devote a special supplement to an abstruse physical theory exemplifies Einstein’s status as a public icon in the 1920’s. Einstein’s announcement of a “unified field theory” had attracted a great deal of public attention, although scientifically it was, as Pais describes it, “much ado about very little,” and Einstein had to abandon the theory after a couple of years. “So great was the public clamor [over the new theory] that [Einstein] went into hiding for a while.” (Pais) Eddington wrote a letter to Einstein telling him that “[y]ou may be amused to hear that one of our great department stores in London (Selfridges) has posted on its window your paper .. so that passers-by can read it all through. Large crowds gather around to read it!” (Eddington was apparently referring to the English translation of the Sitzungsberichte paper that was published in the Times of London the day after the special supplement appeared in the New York Times.)
New York: The New York Times, February 3, 1929. A fine copy, in a remarkable state of preservation.
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