Paul Ehrenfest: The Making of a Theoretical Physicist

This volume covers Ehrenfest's life and work up to 1920: his childhood in a Jewish family in Vienna, his student years in Vienna and Gouml;ttingen and the five years he spent in Russia before World War I. In 1912 he succeeded H.A. Lorentz at Leiden and his early years there are covered in detail. He was a close personal friend of Albert Einstein and the first decade of this friendship is portrayed through their correspondence.