Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was a renowned theoretical physicist of the 20th century, best known for his special and general theories of relativity. He also made important contributions to statistical mechanics, especially by his treatment of Brownian motion, his resolution of the paradox of specific heats, and his connection of fluctuations and dissipation. Despite his reservations about its interpretation, Einstein also made seminal contributions to quantum mechanics and, indirectly, quantum field theory, primarily through his theoretical studies of the photon.
Einstein's writings, including his scientific publications, have been digitized and released on the Internet with English translations by a consortium of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Princeton University Press, and the California Institute of Technology, called the Einstein Papers Project.