Complete Albert Einstein archives will be posted online

The full collection of Albert Einstein’s papers, including political correspondence, love letters, and even fan mail, is being posted online as part of a massive project to digitize the physicist’s work. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to which Einstein left his papers as well as the rights to his image, is currently working to photograph the papers and upload them to an online portal. Unfortunately, the site may be down right now, but the university has currently posted 7,000 pages, a massive increase from the 900 that were previously available. The full collection of 80,000 items has also been catalogued and listed online, giving perhaps the first complete look at what’s actually in the archives.

The new portal will include Einstein’s letters to fellow scientists about his work, as well as research notes on breakthroughs like the theory of relativity. It will also, says former university president Hanoch Gutfreund, present a “complete and full picture” of Einstein. That means people will be able to see things like a letter — now available for the first time since its initial newspaper publication — that suggests a resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Arab world, or his correspondence with lovers. Other papers, the archive’s curator hopes, will correct misconceptions, like the myth that Einstein earned poor grades in school. The Einstein archive is one of a growing number that is being made available online. The Polonsky Foundation, which helped pay for the digitization, previously provided money to digitize Isaac Newton’s papers.