Published here in the original German and French, along with an English translation, the correspondence between Albert Einstein and Elie Cartan includes letters written between 1929 and 1932, after which time Einstein abandoned his unified field theory based on absolute parallelism. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book describes the life and achievements of the great French mathematician, Elie Cartan. Here readers will find detailed descriptions of Cartan's discoveries in Lie groups and algebras, associative algebras, differential equations, and differential geometry, as well of later developments stemming from his ideas. There is also a biographical sketch of Cartan's life. A monumental tribute to a towering figure in the history of mathematics, this book will appeal to mathematicians and historians alike.

An English-language edition of selected correspondence and papers of Albert Einstein A translation of selected non-English texts included in Volume 17 is available in paperback. Since this supplementary paperback includes only select portions of Volume 17, it is not recommended for purchase without the main volume. Every document in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein appears in the language in which it was written, and this supplementary paperback volume presents the English translations of select portions of non-English materials in Volume 17. This translation does not include notes or annotations of the documentary volume and is not intended for use without the original language documentary edition, which provides the extensive editorial commentary necessary for a full historical and scientific understanding of the documents.

THUS SPOKE EINSTEIN on LIFE and LIVING Wisdom of Albert Einstein in the Context Selected, Edited, and Commented by V. Alexander STEFAN Institute for Advanced Physics Studies Stefan University

Despite the rapidly expanding ambit of physical research and the continual appearance of new branches of physics, the main thrust in its development was and is the attempt at a theoretical synthesis of the entire body of physical knowledge. The main triumphs in physical science were, as a rule, associ ated with the various phases of this synthesis. The most radical expression of this tendency is the program of construction of a unified physical theory. After Maxwellian electrodynamics had unified the phenomena of electricity, magnetism, and optics in a single theoretical scheme on the basis of the con cept of the electromagnetic field, the hope arose that the field concept would become the precise foundation of a new unified theory of the physical world. The limitations of an electromagnetic-field conception of physics, however, already had become clear in the first decade of the 20th century. The concept of a classical field was developed significantly in the general theory of relativity, which arose in the elaboration of a relativistic theory of gravitation. It was found that the gravitational field possesses, in addition to the properties inherent in the electromagnetic field, the important feature that it expresses the metric structure of the space-time continuum. This resulted in the following generalization of the program of a field synthesis of physics: The unified field representing gravitation and electromagnetism must also describe the geometry of space-time.