Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his work on the photoelectric effect, where he first introduced the notion that light was composed of discrete particles he called ‘photons’. However, his Nobel Lecture concerns the Theory of Relativity. By this time the Special Theory had received experimental confirmation, yet apparently not enough for some members of the Prize Committee. The General Theory was considered still more speculative at this time, even though the precession of the perihelion of Mercury was correctly predicted by the theory, and the bending of starlight had been observed by Eddington’s solar eclipse expedition of 1919.
There is a wealth of understatement in the description given in the prize announcement, as summarized on the Nobel Prize website linked above:
“The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”.
Albert Einstein received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1922. During the selection process in 1921, the Nobel Committee for Physics decided that none of the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation’s statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Albert Einstein therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1921 one year later, in 1922.”
Relativity was still considered a controversial theory in some quarters, even though it had largely been embraced by the leading theoretical physicists. The ‘relativity revolution’ was still underway, and sill incomplete.
A complete bibliography of Einstein’s publications prior to 1922 can be found here. Although many of the titles are in German, it is clear that his early work was on the fundamentals of thermodynamics and statistical physics, and only in 1905 does he begin to publish work on what we now call the Special Theory of Relativity.
For a recent review of tests of the Special and General Theories, see the 2006 article by Clifford Will.
