1. Einstein’s Teacher
A Greek Mathematician.

2. Konstantinos Karatheodori

3. His life
• Konstantinos Karatheodori was a great
Greek mathematician.
He was born in 1873 and died in 1950 in
Komotini, having achieved distinction at
major German universities. Among his
achievements was the foundation of the
University of Izmir and the modernization
of the Aristotelian University of
Thessaloniki.

4. Karatheodori was Great Einstein’s teacher.
Einstein himself declared during one of his last
public appearances:
“You ask me to answer to all sorts of questions,
but noone has ever wanted to know who my
teacher was, who showed me the way to higher
mathematical science, thought and research. I
simply say that my teacher was the unrivalled
Greek Konstantinos Karatheodoris, to whom we
owe everything…”

5. Letters to K. Karatheodori
• Greek officials have received copies of letters by
Albert Einstein which suggest that the work of an
unheralded Greek mathematician helped shape
some of his theories.
• Ten copies of letters exchanged between Albert
Einstein and noted Greek mathematician
Konstantinos Karatheodori are held at the
Einstein Museum in Israel.

6. • “I consider your derivative as excellent.. at first I
was misleaded by a slight error in the second
page. But know, I understand everything. You
should publish the theory in this form in Αnnalen
der Physik since physicists know nothing on this
subject, neighter do I. [...] If you would like to
unfold regular transformations, I would be a
concious and grateful listener. If you could also
solve the problem of closed timelines, then I
would kneel to you. [...] A. Einstein”