Science works in peculiar ways. Everything that matters will need to be published. Yet, this is no guarantee that it won’t be forgotten or lost. Recently a handwritten manuscript of Albert Einsteins was recovered. The paper in question is widely regarded as the last of his greatest contribution to theoretical physics.

It is the last part of a three piece set, the first paper of which was not authored but merely translated and submitted by Einstein after it has been previously rejected for publication.

It was the work of the young Satyendra Nath Bose an often overlooked giant of modern quantum mechanics.  To my knowledge Bose’s original manuscript in English that he sent to Einstein has been lost for good.  The only copies in English have been translated back from the German paper that Einstein submitted on behalf of Bose to the journal “Zeitschrift für Physik” in 1924.

Yet, no such translations of Einstein’s historic follow up paper are readily available.  A cursory Google search comes up empty.

When the news of the recovered manuscript spread in various LinkedIn physics groups, many posters expressed frustration that the paper at the Leiden University Einstein Archive was merely a scan of the German original and therefore inaccessible to most.

So I decided to add the “Lost Papers” page to this blog to provide these papers in a modern English translation. Fortunately I have some help with this, as I am currently very busy.

First off I now start with Bose’s short first paper but the translation of Einstein’s last paper is near completion and will then be linked there as well.