Albert Einstein. Geometrie und Erfahrung, erweiterte fassung des Festvortrages Gehalten an der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschten zu Berlin am 27. Januar 1921. Berlin, Verlag von Julius Springer, 1921. 217x142mm, 20pp, two text illustrations. First Edition. Weil 115
Original printed cream-colored wrappers. Lovely copy, except that there is a very old vertical fold through the center of the pamphlet extending most of the way through the publication. If you look hard you can see it in the cover, though it is more visible on the verso of the leaf. That sounds a little harsh, but, really, it isn't. In any event, I'm reflecting this defect in the price. $350
"General Discussions and Expositions. During these years Einstein was also concerned to clarify misconceptions about the theory of relativity and to present his views on natural sciences on a less abstract level. Among his efforts in this direction, one particularly beautiful lecture must be mentioned. In 1921, at the Prussian Academy’s commemorative session honoring Frederick the Great, Einstein delivered a lecture on geometry [this paper, which is an extended version of the lecture, "Geometrie und Erfahrung", ("Geometry and Experience")] and experience in which he summed up his views on the geometrization of physics and relativity and the relation of mathematics to the external world. Here he gave his famous answer to the puzzling question of why mathematics should be so well adapted to describing the external world: “Insofar as the Laws of Mathematics refer to the external world, they are not certain; and insofar as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”--Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 4.
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