ABSTRACT
This chapter presents three aspects of Einstein's accomplishment: first, what was Einstein's problem situation; second, what Einstein accomplished in his paper; and third, where the novelty of Einstein's work lay. Einstein like Faraday, was a man who throughout his life was guided by an overriding passion: the search for a greater understanding of the mysteries of the universe. Einstein, like Faraday, sought in the scientific life a chance to live in a purer and more beautiful world. Still more important to Einstein's problem situation was his concern with the quantum theory. A modification was needed which might well contradict some of the fundamental assumptions of Maxwell's theory. In 1905 Einstein made the suggestion which became the starting point of a new theory. Einstein's discovery of the relativistic transformations was for him the beginning of a reconstruction of physical theory in accord with the principles of relativity and constancy of velocity of light.
