Relativity, The Special and General Theory (Hebrew Edition)

Book Description

First publication of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Hebrew, regarded by the scientist as a symbol of the cultural resurrection of the Jewish People“The appearance of my book in the language of our ancestors fills my heart with a special joy”EINSTEIN, Albert. Relativity The Special and General Theory. With a special author’s foreword to the Hebrew Edition. Tel Aviv: Dvir Publishing, 5689 [1928]. 103pp. Frontispiece portrait. Translated from the original German by Jacob Greenberg. Original gray wrappers, uncut. A Very Good copy.FIRST HEBREW EDITION with the Author’s Foreword: “The appearance of this, my book, in the language of our forefathers fills my heart with special joy. It is a sign of the transformation that has occurred in this language (of ours). It is not enough to focus at present on its use in this area alone, namely that of expressing the central issues of our people to our own people, but more appropriately to absorb within it all that humanity finds of value in it. It [Hebrew] serves as an important factor in our aspiration for an independent cultural existence.”At the time of printing of this Hebrew edition, Einstein had already been awarded The Nobel Prize (1921) in theoretical physics. During the spring of that same year, which marked his first visit to the United States, Einstein traveled with Chaim Weizmann for nearly two months, giving college lectures on the Theory of Relativity and making personal appearances to raise funds for the establishment of the Hebrew University which opened four years later. EINSTEIN REGARDS HEBREW LANGUAGE AS CULTURAL RESURRECTION OF HIS PEOPLE. In translator Jacob Greenberg’s preface, he states that this Hebrew edition was particularly dear to the author not only because Hebrew is the ancestral tongue but also because Einstein regarded the language as the cultural resurrection of the Jewish people. That his most important work would be accessible in the language of his ethnicity was a great source of pride. More significantly, the appearance of such a seminal scientific publication in Hebrew marks its true beginning as a vital modern language and not just a linguistically, resurrected symbol.The first printing of Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity appeared in the German science publication Annalen der Physik in Leipzig, 1916 (Vol. 49, pp. pp 769-822). Its gentle arrival proved a deafening thunderclap for science --- upsetting as it did the basic, Newtonian ideas about space and time. His Theory supports the discovery that light moves at a constant speed for any observer at any position. The conclusion being that both motion and time are relative to the observer.Everyone kept asking if Weizmann [and anyone else, so it seems] understood The Theory. Weizmann’s reply was that during the voyage together across the Atlantic “Einstein explained his theory to me every day and on my arrival I was fully convinced that he understood it.”One of the first questions had been a constant companion since November, 1919: “Can you explain relativity in a few sentences?” Ever anxious not to disappoint, and in this case doubly so out of loyalty to Weizmann, Einstein had an answer that became a classic. “If you will not take the answer too seriously, and consider it only as a joke, then I can explain it as follows,” he said. “It was formerly believed that if all material things disappeared out of the universe, time and space would be left. According to the relativity theory, however, time and space disappear together with the things.”From: Einstein, The Life and Times by Ronald W. Clark. Pp. 385-86

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