Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper (+) Über einem die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden heuristischen Gesischtspunkt (+) Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspend... - [A NEW VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE] by EINSTEIN, ALBERT - 1905

1905. Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1905. 8vo. All three papers extracted and with marbled paper strip. In "Annalen der Physik, Vierte Folge, Band 17". Housed in a beautiful half calf box with blue goat skin to spine and walnut wood veneer to boards. A fine and clean set. [Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper:] Pp. 891-921; [Über einem die Erzeugung... :] Pp. 132-148; [Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie... :] Pp. 549-571. The first edition, journal issues, of Einstein's three landmark papers which laid the foundation for a new view of the universe, shattering the Newtonian view which had ruled for over two centuries. "Of all the scientific journals in the world, the single most sought-after collector's item by far is the Annalen der Physik, volume XVII, for 1905, [from which the 3 present papers are extracted] for... Einstein published not one, but three papers in the journal, causing 1905 to be dubbed the annus mirabilis of science" (Watson, The Modern Mind). The three papers include the epochal first paper on special relativity, the Nobel prize award winning paper on the photon and the photoelectric effect, and the demonstration of the atom's existence through Brownian motion - Max Born did not exaggerate when he called Volume 17 of Annalen der Physik "one of the most remarkable volumes in the whole scientific literature.""Einstein was driven to the special theory of relativity mostly by aesthetic arguments, that is by arguments of simplcity. The same magnificent obsession would stay with him for the rest of his life. It was to lead to his greatest achievement, general relativity, and to his noble failure, unified field theory" (Pais). Einstein was the first physicist to formulate clearly the new kinematical foundation for all of physics inherent in Lorentz's electron theory. This kinematics emerged in 1905 from his critical examination of the physical significance of the concepts of spatial and temporal intervals. The examination, based on a careful definition of the simultaneity of distant events, showed that the concept of a universal or absolute time, on which Newtonian kinematics is based has to be abandoned; and that the Galilean transformations between the coordinates of two inertial frames of reference has to be replaced by a set of spatial and temporal transformations that agree formally with a set that Lorentz had introduced earlier with a quite different interpretation. "Through the interpretation of the transformations as elements of a space-time symmetry group corresponding to the new kinematics, the special theory of relativity (as it later came to be called) provided physicists with a powerful guide in the search for new dynamical theories of fields and particles and gradually led to a deeper appreciation of the role of symmetry criteria in physics. The special theory of relativity also provided philosophers with abundant material for reflection on the new views of space and time. The special theory, like Newtonaian mechanics, still assigns a privileged status to the class of inertial frames of reference. The attempt to generalize the theory to include gravitation led Einstein to formulate the equivalence principle in 1907. This was the first step in his search for a new theory of gravitation denying a privileged role to intertial frames, a theory that is now known as the general theory of relativity" (Stachel, Einstein's Miraculous Year, 101).Dibner 167; Grolier/Horblit 26b; Norman 691a; Weil 6, 8, 9; Barchas 609; Vaduz 11.