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On May 18, 1921, a Special Meeting was held at the House of the �鶹��ý��վ at 28 Newbury Street in honor of Professor Albert Einstein of the �鶹��ý��վ of Sciences in Berlin, during his first visit to the United States. That same year Einstein would receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. Two hundred Members and guests attended the afternoon meeting. President George Foot Moore opened the meeting by addressing Professor Einstein and speaking of the “peculiarly international character of science, and of its advances...” Einstein then addressed the �鶹��ý��վ in German and gave an exposition of the theory of general relativity.

Harlow Shapley, an astronomer and past President of the �鶹��ý��վ, later recalled Einstein’s apparent confusion during the meeting when a member, Professor Julian Coolidge, would helpfully jump up and erase an equation as soon as Einstein would turn his back. By way of explanation, Shapley later remarked, “Here we believe, apparently, in fresh equations.”

In the previous year, the �鶹��ý��վ had devoted a Stated Meeting to three lectures on the theory of relativity and its implications for astronomy and the study of gravitation. In fact, the �鶹��ý��վ began publishing explanations and explorations of Einstein’s theories in Memoirs as early as 1909, less than five years after Einstein published his first theory of special relativity.

Einstein was elected to the �鶹��ý��վ in 1924, and his letter of acceptance is on permanent display in the �鶹��ý��վ Atrium.

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