The scientific working document, sold on Tuesday for the house Aguttes, was estimated between two and three million euros.
Le Monde with AFP
This is a rare scientific working document. A manuscript of the famous Physicist Albert Einstein, in which he prepared his theory of general relativity, was sold to auction for the record of 11.6 million euros (with expenses) Tuesday, November 23, in Paris.
Previous records for a manuscript of Einstein were $ 2.8 million (€ 2.4 million) in 2018 for a letter on God, and $ 1.56 million (1.39 million in 2017 in Jerusalem for a letter on the secret of happiness.
The document sold Tuesday was estimated between two and three million euros. This 54-page autograph manuscript was written between 1913 and 1914, Zurich (Switzerland), by the physicist of German origin and his collaborator and confidant Michele Besso.
RARE autograph document
“Einstein’s scientific autograph documents of this period, and more generally before 1919, are extremely rare,” Christie’s underlined before the sale, at whom the auction for the Aguttes house took place.
These started at 1.5 million and flew in a few minutes, with a battle between two buyers on the telephone in 200,000 euros. The nationality of the acquirer was not known at the beginning of the evening. A hundred curious and collectors were present in the room, none of them being a bidder.
According to Christie’s, it is thanks to Besso that “the manuscript is, almost miraculously, taken to us: Einstein probably would not have taken the trouble to keep what could appear to him as a working document.”
After his theory of restricted relativity, which made him demonstrate in 1905 the famous formula E = MC², Einstein began to work at a theory of general relativity. This theory of gravitation, finally published in November 1915, revolutionized our understanding of the universe. Death in 1955 at the age of 76, Einstein became the symbol of scientific genius as much as a pop figure, with the famous photo of 1951 where he pulls the tongue.
The manuscript counts “a number of errors “
In early 1913, he and Besso “tackle one of the problems that the scientific community had been hitting for decades: the abnormality of the orbit of the planet Mercury,” says Christie’s. The two scientists will solve this riddle.
This is not in the calculations lying on this manuscript, which count “a number of unnoticed errors”. When Einstein spotted them, he was not careful of this manuscript, carried away by Besso.
“Being one of the only two manuscripts of work documenting the genesis of the theory of general relativity that came to us, it is an extraordinary testimony of Einstein’s work and allows us a fascinating dive in the spirit of the spirit of greater scientist of the XX e century “, according to Christie’s.