Albert Einstein Archive Now Online, Bringing 80,000+ Documents to the Web

It’s not hard to jump online and learn about Albert Ein­stein’s intel­lec­tu­al con­tri­bu­tions. Thanks to Yale, you can get a 60 minute primer on Ein­stein’s the­o­ret­i­cal work. It’s called Ein­stein for the Mass­es. Or you can embark upon a longer, 10-lec­ture explo­ration of Ein­stein’s ground­break­ing ideas (iTunes – YouTube) with Leonard Susskind, a Stan­ford pro­fes­sor known for his own ground­break­ing work on String The­o­ry.

And then there’s this: Start­ing this week, the Hebrew Uni­ver­si­ty of Jerusalem is bring­ing online an exten­sive archive of papers and let­ters belong­ing to the great human­ist and sci­en­tist. The col­lec­tion cur­rent­ly fea­tures 2,000 doc­u­ments and will even­tu­al­ly sur­pass 80,000. And it all gives a round­ed view of Ein­stein’s life and work. The doc­u­ments shed light on his per­son­al rela­tion­ship with his moth­er, wife and many mis­tress­es; his views on the Arab-Israeli con­flict; and his work on physics itself. A quick way to sam­ple the archive is to enter this gallery, where, among oth­er things, you’ll find Ein­stein’s man­u­script intro­duc­ing his famous equa­tion, e=mc2.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sir Isaac Newton’s Papers & Anno­tat­ed Prin­cip­ia Go Dig­i­tal

Roy­al Soci­ety Opens Online Archive; Puts 60,000 Papers Online

Free Physics Cours­es: 28 Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties