Albert Einstein may be gone, but his scientific legacy certainly lives on. So too does his knowledge, thanks to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which has just made Einstein's personal collection of notes available to the public for the first time via the internet.
A full 80,000 items from Einstein's personal collection have been archived and uploaded to the searchable database. The collection runs the gamut from highly educational — it contains notes on his theory of relativity — to highly personal, such as correspondence to his sick mother. Many of the items were donated to the Hebrew University by Einstein himself; the rest were acquired after the fact.
While much about Einstein is already known, these papers do open up a new window on his life. Notably, the collection contains a number of political musings, discussing the treatment of Jewish Germans post-World War I and his thoughts on nuclear disarmament. But it's not all serious: You also get to read some of Einstein's fan mail, including a letter from a 6-year-old girl imploring, "you ought to have your haircut."
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