Einstein Studies in Russia

This volume presents a selection of contributions by Russian scholars - historians and philosophers to science - to the Einstein Studies industry, broadly construed. This work explores the historical and foundational issues in general relativity and relativistic cosmology, Einstein’s contributions to early quantum mechanics and the rise of Dirac’s quantum electrodynamics. It also includes a detailed description of the physics colloquium Einstein established and coordinated in 1912-1913 and comments on his brief interest in the construction of the plane wing in 1916. The contributors draw extensively on documentation previously unavailable to most scholars. Materials from various Russian archives shed new light on the famous exchange (regarding the first evolutionary cosmological models) between Einstein and Alexander Friedmann in the early 1920s and on the role of Boris Podolsky and Vladimir Fock in the emergence of quantum electrodynamics. The little-known correspondence between Einstein and a famous German pilot Paul Erhardt suggests that during World War I, the former was involved with aero- and hydrodynamics research and ways of improving airplane design. Other articles introduce new approaches to important foundational questions in general relativity and cosmology.