Beginning on the 18th of March 1905 at approximately eight week intervals the noted German
physics journal Annalen der Physik received three hand-written manuscripts from a relatively
unknown patent examiner in Bern. The patent examiner was the twenty-six year old Albert
Einstein and the three papers would set the agenda for twentieth century physics. A fourth
short paper was received by the journal on the 27th of September. It contained Einstein's
derivation of the formula E=mc2. These papers with their many technological ramifications
changed our lives in the twentieth century and beyond. While to a professional physicist the
mathematics in these papers is quite straight forward the ideas behind the mathematics are
not. In fact none of Einstein's contemporaries fully understood what he had done. The goal of
this book is to make these ideas accessible to a general reader with no more mathematics than
one learns in high school. PRAISE FOR BOOK: With wonderfully chosen digressions and some
sophisticated physics plus the minimum amount of math to support it Jeremy Bernstein has
produced a charming account of Einstein's epoch-making papers of 1905. Here is surely the
thinking person's guide to Einstein's 'Miracle Year. -Owen Gingerich Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics Author The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus
Copernicus Why are physicists celebrating the centenary of Einstein's miracle year? In this gem
of a book-and in simple words-Bernstein explains how young Albert in that one year set the
foundation to a century of progress in physics. -Sheldon L. Glashow Winner of the 1979 Nobel
Prize inPhysics Professor Boston University
