A Commentary on the Notes on Gravity in the Zurich Notebook

Abstract

The Zurich Notebook provides what appears to be a virtually complete record of Einstein's search for gravitational field equations in the winter of 1912--1913. He had just started to explore a new theory of gravitation in which the ten components of the metric tensor take over the role of the gravitational potential in Newton's theory. 1 The notes documenting Einstein's search for field equations for this theory take up the better part of the notebook. They start on pp. 39L--41R and continue on pp. 5R--29L and pp. 42L--43L. Our text is a detailed running commentary on these notes. 2 It provides line-by-line reconstructions of all calculations and discusses the purpose behind them. 3 The commentary is self-contained and can in principle be read independently of the notebook. It is designed, however, to be used in conjunction with the facsimile and the transcription of the notebook presented in vol. 1 of this series. The reader seeking guidance in reading a particular passage of the notebook can go directly to the section of the commentary in which that passage is analyzed. To help the reader find the relevant section, both the table of contents and the running heads of the text match (sub) (sub-)sections of the commentary to pages of the notebook. When looking up the annotation for a specific passage of the notebook, the reader is advised to consult the introduction to the (sub-)(sub-)section of the commentary dealing with that passage first.