4 ms·

Einstein's 1905 Annus Mirabilis papers seem like they easiest of the bunch to just read through. I just pulled up 'Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theori

• rramadass 2mo ago
  My point is that each of the material above (and i forgot to add the original Quantum Mechanics papers) were major watershed moments in science/mathematics and hence are not easy to read/understand. You need a good background in the subject matter(and mathematics) and/or somebody guiding you through them. So what i do is try and find books which are written for the "educated common reader" by an expert who guides you through the original paper/book. It is still difficult to understand if you do not have the necessary background but at least you have a good starting point. Some books in my collection; 1) Newton's Principia for the Common Reader by S.Chandrasekhar 2) Maxwell on the Electromagnetic Field: A Guided Study (Masterworks of Discovery) by Thomas Simpson 3) Einstein's Miraculous Year by John Stachel. 4) The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold. What we need is for a group of professors to get together and start writing a series on explaining the original papers to the "educated common reader" i.e. not too trivial nor too overwhelming. I think there is a huge market for this since it humanizes how science is done in real life which is fundamental for motivation.
  • eru 2mo ago
    > My point is that each of the material above (and i forgot to add the original Quantum Mechanics papers) were major watershed moments in science/mathematics and hence are not easy to read/understand. I must dissent. Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers are really quite approachable. You don't need a book to guide you through. Though if you are having fun with the book, more power to you! Enjoy!
    • rramadass 2mo ago
      We have to agree to disagree then. You definitely need a good background in Physics to understand them. For a general reader, even though they might not get the whole thing they can still get an appreciation for the whole from the commentary/details added by the editor. The book contains the English translations of the 5 papers with Einstein's original introduction and a short discussion on each, a informative introduction and a foreword by Roger Penrose.
      • eru 2mo ago
        Oh, the book is probably good and entertaining! It's just not necessary, if you paid attention in high school.
        • rramadass 2mo ago
          > if you paid attention in high school. A very hard Nope! No high school teaches you Electrodynamics at the level needed to understand his Relativity/Photoelectric-effect papers, the idea of Stochastic Randomness behind Kinetic theory/Brownian motion etc. You need both background physics theory and the mathematical tools. For your edification see; John Stachel: Einstein papers - https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/february-2005/john-stachel-einstein-papers?language_content_entity=und https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/february-2005/john-... Annus Mirabilis Papers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis_papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis_papers
          • 2mo ago