A theory of the specific heat capacity of solids put forward by Albert Einstein in 1907, in which it was assumed that the specific heat capacity is a consequence of the vibrations of the atoms of the lattice of the solid. Einstein assumed that each atom has the same frequency ν. The theory leads to the correct conclusion that the specific heat of solids tends to zero as the temperature goes to absolute zero, but does not give a correct quantitative description of the low-temperature behaviour of the specific heat capacity. In the Debye theory of specific heat, and in other analyses of this problem, Einstein’s simplifying approximation was improved on by taking account of the fact that the frequencies of lattice vibrations can have a range of values.