Einstein, Hilbert, and The Theory of Gravitation

Some time ago I published a small piece * dealing with a charming little essay on ''the state of ether in magnetic fields'', which the sixteen-year-old Einstein had written while he was awaiting admission to the E. T. H. in Zurich. This paper sought to trace the continuity between Einstein''s early interest in electrodynamics and his later work on the special and general relativity theories. On re...