Physics & astronomy · 1905
Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper
Annalen der Physik · 4th series · vol. 17 · 1905
Derives special relativity from the relativity principle and the constant speed of light, and applies it to electrodynamics and optics.
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- License
- Public domain
- Source
- de.wikisource.org
- Retrieved
- 27 September 2026
- Language
- German
- Rights holder
- Albert Einstein, 1905
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Edition
Wikisource transcription (status “fertig”) of the paper in Annalen der Physik, 4th series, vol. 17 (1905), pp. 891-921, from the raw wikitext of its 31 pages (Seite:Einstein-Elektrodynamik.djvu/1 to 31), checked word by word and formula by formula against the page scans of Commons File:Einstein-Elektrodynamik.djvu (Internet Archive sim_annalen-der-physik_1905_17_5). Corrections made to the transcription after the scan: “Wertsystem” for “Wert System” and “linear” in italics (p. 898); the arctg of w_y over w_x (p. 905, Wikisource: w_eta over w_xi); cos instead of sin in the denominator of U, 1 + w/V instead of 1 + w/v, and w set as a symbol (p. 906); “(X’, Y’ Z’)” without the second comma and Z instead of z in the relation for M’ (p. 908); “Lichtquelle-Beobachter” joined by an en dash as printed (pp. 911, 912); no square root in the denominator of A’^2 (p. 912); tau added to the list of symbols (p. 918); a baseline dot between N and the root (p. 921); and the punctuation of formulas as printed (pp. 894, 902, 912, 917, 919); four spaces of the wikitext are fixed (pp. 898, 901, 918, 920), and some formulas are set closer to the print without changing them (v over V stacked on p. 914, cos upright on p. 915, the brace of system (A) on p. 918, alignment of the equals and minus signs on pp. 905, 907, 918). The misprints of the print are kept: the heading “II. Eektrodynamischer Teil.” (Wikisource: “Elektrodynamischer”) and “Doppelerschen”, as is the missing mu in the integral of W (p. 920). The title and the author line are in the header; names set letter-spaced in the print are letter-spaced; the four footnotes, numbered 1) on each page of the print, are numbered 1 to 4 at the end of the text; formulas are set with KaTeX, with the one epsilon of the print throughout (the wikitext mixes two forms); line-end hyphens are rejoined, running heads and page numbers are dropped.
Rights
Albert Einstein died on 18 April 1955: his works are in the public domain in France since 1 January 2026 (70 years counted from 1 January 1956). The paper was published in 1905, before 1 January 1931, so it is in the public domain in the United States.
The Commons scan used for checking (File:Einstein-Elektrodynamik.djvu) is marked public domain there (PD-old-auto-1923, author died 1955); no image of it is reproduced.
