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Hans Albert Einstein papers
WRCA 100
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Title: Hans Albert Einstein papers
Date (inclusive): 1878-1972, undated
Collection Number: WRCA 100
Creator:
Einstein, H. A. (Hans Albert)
Extent:
42.0 linear feet
(42 boxes)
Repository:
Rivera Library. Special Collections Department.
Riverside, CA 92517-5900
Abstract: The professional papers of Hans Albert Einstein. Materials include research notes and data, maps, correspondence, and reprints.
Topics are primarily river sedimentation and flow.
Languages: The collection is primarily in English with materials in French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, and Japanese.
The collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the University of California, Riverside Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives.
Distribution or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission
of the copyright owners. To the extent other restrictions apply, permission for distribution or reproduction from the applicable
rights holder is also required. Responsibility for obtaining permissions, and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
[identification of item], [date if possible]. Hans Albert Einstein papers (WRCA 100). Water Resources Collections and Archives.
Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.
The Hans Einstein materials were given to the Water Resources Collections and Archives following his death in 1973 by his
wife, Elizabeth Roboz Einstein.
Processed by Water Resources Collections and Archives staff, 1999. The collection also includes 3 boxes of unprocessed materials.
The Einstein papers (previously MS 80/8), Sediment Transport collection (previously MS 76/12), and Flow collection (previously
MS 89/4) were merged into a single collection with a combined finding aid in April 2020 by Andrew Lippert, Special Collections
Processing Archivist.
Hans Albert Einstein
1904-1973
Professor of Hydraulic Engineering, Emeritus
Professor Hans Albert Einstein, an accomplished scholar, engineer, and teacher, was born on May 14, 1904 in Bern, Switzerland,
a year before his father, Albert H. Einstein, published the
Special Theory of Relativity.His mother, Mileva Maric, was from Serbia and was a physics student before her marriage. Professor Einstein received his elementary
school education in Zurich. In 1926 he received the Diploma in Civil Engineering, and in 1936 the Doctor of Technical Sciences,
both from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
For four years following the receipt of his Diploma degree, he worked in Dortmund, Germany as a steel designer. During Professor
Einstein's graduate study he became deeply interested in the fundamental mechanics of the transportation of sediment by flowing
water. His doctoral thesis,
Bed Load Transport as a Probability Problem (1936), is the definitive work on sediment transportation as accepted by engineers and scientists throughout the world.
In 1927 he married Frieda Knecht of the University of Zurich, a teacher of German language and literature. One of their three
children, Bernard, is a physicist, and the second, Evelyn, took her degree in anthropology. A third child, Klaus, died as
a young boy shortly after the family came to the United States.
In 1938 Professor Einstein immigrated to the United States where he continued his research on the transport of sediment,
first at the U.S. Agricultural Experiment Station at Clemson, South Carolina (1938-1943), and later (1943-1947) at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture Cooperative Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. These years of research culminated in
the classic Department of Agriculture Technical Publication No. 1026,
The Bed-Load Function for Sediment Transportation in Open Channel Flows.
Professor Einstein joined the faculty of the University of California in 1947 as Associate Professor, and later became Professor
of Hydraulic Engineering. He possessed the rare combination of a highly competent research scientist, a fine practicing engineer,
and an excellent teacher in both the graduate and undergraduate areas of instruction. To recognize the many valuable contributions
of Professor Einstein in research and teaching, his many former students organized in his honor a symposium on sedimentation
on the Berkeley campus upon his retirement in 1970. The proceedings of this symposium resulted in the book,
Sedimentation,in 1971.
Professor Einstein's extracurricular activities were diverse and numerous. He loved sailing and music. No day was too rough
on San Francisco Bay to prevent him from heading out through the entrance of the Berkeley Yacht Harbor for a period of excitement
and relaxation on the Bay.
Professor Einstein was extremely generous with his time-whether in conferences with his many graduate students, teaching
for brief periods at foreign universities, or advising countries around the world on solutions to critical sedimentation problems.
On one such occasion in late June 1973, he was at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, giving
lectures and participating in research when at lunch he suffered a heart attack from which he did not recover and died July
26, 1973. Early after his arrival at Woods Hole he expressed his admiration of the beauty and serenity of this small seaside
town-his family therefore chose the small cemetery overlooking the harbor as his final resting place.
Widowed in 1958 by the death of his first wife, Professor Einstein married Elizabeth Roboz, then a biochemist at Stanford
Medical School, and later Clinical Professor of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.
By students, friends, and colleagues, Hans Albert Einstein's name will be recalled with warmth throughout the world. He offered
encouragement and patient assistance to his students, and through his contacts with students, teachers, and engineers, he
had great influence on the scientific development of the hydraulics of sedimentation in foreign countries as well as in the
United States. As an example of the many letters received by the Department from former graduate students, one student observed,
The picture of his well built and smiling figure striding across the Hydraulic Laboratory still hovers in my mind and before
my eyes. We will always cherish those sweet memories.
Among Professor Einstein's numerous honors and awards were a Guggenheim Fellowship (1953), research awards from the American
Society of Civil Engineers (1959 and 1960), The Berkeley Citation from the University of California (1971), the Certificate
of Merit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1971), and a certificate of recognition for more than twenty years of devoted
and distinguished service to
Applied Mechanics Reviewsby the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1972).
J. W. Johnson
D. K. Todd
R. L. Wiegel
Professional and working papers by Einstein and others.
The materials in this collection are arranged into three series. Each series was previously its own collection.
- Series 1. Hans A. Einstein papers, 1913-1972, undated
- Series 2. Flow materials, 1878, 1904-1973, undated
- Series 3. Sediment Transport materials, 1878-1972, undated
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog.
Binnie, Alfred Maurice, 1901-1986
Chien, Ning
De Marchi, Giulio
East Bay Municipal Utility District (Calif.)
Escande, Leopold
Favre, Henry
Ghetti, Augusto, 1914-
Harrison, Anthony John Maxwell
Indri, Egidio
Inglis, Claude Cavendish, Sir
Irmay, Shragga
Jorissen, Andre
von Karman, Theodore, 1881-1963
Kasugaya, Nobumasa, 1920-1990
Keulegan, Garbis Hovannes, 1890-1989
Krumbein, William Christian (W. C.), 1902-1979
Lane, E. W.
Meyer-Peter, Eugen, 1883-1969
Peters, A. S.
Plesset, Milton Spinoza
Schumm, Stanley Alfred
Scimemi, Ettore
United States. Army. Corps of Engineers
United States. Bureau of Reclamation
Atchafalaya River (La.)
Bear River (Utah-Idaho)
Bed load
Cavitation
Channels (Hydraulic engineering)
Colusa Weir (Calif.)
Flow meters
Hydraulic measurements
Hydraulics
Hydrodynamics
Los Gatos Creek (Calif.)
Old River (La.)
Rio Grande (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
River engineering
Salinas River Project (Calif.)
Sediment control
Sediment transport
Sedimentation analysis
Sedimentation and deposition
Soil conservation
Soil erosion
Stream channelization -- Louisiana
Stream measurements
Suspended sediments
Turbulence
Turbulent boundary layer
Water-pipes -- Hydrodynamics
Correspondence
Maps
Research notes