Bern, Switzerland March 01, 1901

Einstein's first scientific paper: Conclusions Drawn from the Phenomena of Capillarity is published in the Annalen der Physik. Using both thermodynamic and molecular-theoretical methods, he examined the nature of intermolecular forces in the specific phenomena of capillarity in neutral liquids. 4:pg: 513-523.

Bern, Switzerland July 02, 1902

Einstein's second paper, On the Thermodynamic Theory of the Potential Difference between Metals and Fully Dissociated Solutions of Their Salts and on an Electrical Method for Investigating Molecular Forces, is published by the Annalen der Physik 8: pg: 798-814.

In this paper Einstein discussed the conditions for the validity of the second law of thermodynamics, which became significant for his later work.

Bern, Switzerland September 18, 1902

Einstein's third paper, Kinetic Theory of Thermal Equilibrium and of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Annalen der Physik 9: pg. 417-433.

Intending to complete the mechanical foundations of the "general theory of heat," Einstein here provided the keystone in a chain of derivations already begun by Ludwig Boltzmann.

Bern Switzerland, April 16, 1903

Einstein's fourth paper, A Theory of the Foundations
of Thermodynamics, Annalen der Physik, ser. 4, 11. pg. 170-187.
Einstein showed that the concepts of temperature and entropy follow from the assumption of the energy principle and atomic theory. He required only the foundations of atomic physics but no other physical hypothesis.

Bern Switzerland, June 02 1904

Einstein's fifth paper, On the General Molecular Theory of Heat, Annalen der Physik 14, pg. 354-362.
The culmination of Einstein's efforts to generalize and extend the foundations of statistical physics, this was his last paper devoted exclusively to the subject.

Bern Switzerland, March 18, 1905

Einstein's sixth paper, On a Heuristic Point of View

Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light, Annalen der Physik 17: pg. 132-148.

Einstein expounded on the peculiar discrepancy between material bodies and radiation and introduced the concept of light quanta, or photons, providing the basis for much of the later work in quantum theory, especially Bohr's theory of the atom.

Challenging the wave theory of light, Einstein showed that electromagnetic radiation interacts with matter as if the radiation has a granular structure (the so-called photoelectric effect). He determined that a massless quantum of light, the photon, would have to impart the energy required according to Planck's radiation law to break the attractive forces holding the electrons in the metal. This theory was one of the milestones in the development of quantum mechanics, making Einstein the foremost pioneer in the field and opening the world of quantum physics. The first of the five great papers he published in 1905, it earned him the Nobel Prize in physics sixteen years later.

Bern Switzerland, May 11, 1905

Einstein's Seventh paper, On the Movement of Small

Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the
Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat, Annalen der Physik 17: pg. 549-560.

For the first time, Einstein discussed Brownian motion, the irregular movement of microscopic particles suspended in a liquid, which was named after the eighteenth-century Scottish botanist who first observed it.

As Einstein explained ia letter to his friend Conrad Habicht on May 25, he proved in this paper that particles about 1/1000 millimeter in diameter suspended in liquids and too small to see move randomly because of thermal dynamics.

By inventing Boltzmann's formula, Einstein described its mathematics, deriving the probability of a macroscopic state for the distribution of gas molecules. This paper led to experiments validating the kinetic-molecular theory of heat. To date, this is Einstein's most-cited paper.

Bern Switzerland, June 30, 1905

Einstein's eighth paper, On the Electrodynamics of

Moving Bodies, Annalen der Physik 17: pg. 801-921.

This landmark in the development of physics (Special Theory of Relativity), is one of two papers that laid out the structure of the theory of relativity, the other "The General Theory", formulated a new conception of time, by assuming that the speed of light is the same to every observer moving at a constant velocity. Einstein showed that that space and time were not independent: Thus spacetime was born.

According to Herman Weyl in 1918, this theory "led to the discovery that time is associated as a fourth coordinate on an equal footing with the other three coordinates of space, and that the scene of material events, the world, is therefore a four-dimensional, metrical continuum." It was a revolutionary piece of scientific work.

Einstein's exploration of the nature of simultaniety and expression of the necessity of defining simultaniety was also explored in this landmark paper.

Bern Switzerland, August 18, 1905

Einstein's ninth paper, A New Determination of Molecular

Dimensions, Annalen der Physik 19: 289-305.

This document is Einstein's doctoral dissertation, resubmitted in the spring of 1905 after he withdrew his first submission in 1902. Here he combined the techniques of classical thermodynamics with those of the theory of diffucsion to create a new method for determining molecular sizes.

He wanted to discover facts that would establish once and for all the existence of atoms of a specific finite size, since at the turn of the century the atom's existence was still in contention.

After he submitted his copy of the thesis to the University of Zurich, his petition to receive the doctorate was approved.

Bern Switzerland, September 27, 1905

Einstein's tenth paper, Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy Content? Annalen der Physik 18: pg. 639-641.
Using the postulates of the special theory of relativity, Einstein showed that energy radiated is equivalent to mass lost, which would eventually lead to the famous equation: E=mc2.
He considered the conservation of energy of a radiating body in a system at rest and in a system in uniform motion relative to it. For the first time he concluded that "the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content.
"The special theory of relativity paved the way for a deeper appreciation of symmetry criteria in physics and introduced new views on space and time, yet it took twenty-five years for experimental evidence in its favor to emerge.