Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - photo 1
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - photo 2

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Lot 331
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1109133
Lot 331 | Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Typed letter signed ('A. Einstein') to Dr Cornelius Lanczos, Old Lyme, Connecticut, 14 September 1935
In German. 1¼ pages, 282 x 217mm, with autograph additions in black and green ink including two equations and three further mathematical terms. Provenance: Sotheby's, 26 November 1980, lot 157.

On a mathematical difficulty which 'cooled my confidence below freezing point': Einstein reflects on an article by Lanczos. Einstein expresses the great pleasure he has found in the 'beauty of the whole construction' of Lanczos's latest article: 'The fact that the pure Maxwellian case is excluded is actually in appearance only; for in k2=k1+ε you can make ε really infinitely small'. He goes on: 'The first field equation reminds me of a pain I felt in previous efforts that led to similar additions to the gravitational equations as yours (to a first approximation)', and he writes out the relevant equation. 'If this is a true relationship for Maxwell's field, then the right-hand side does not disappear for an electrostatic, centrally symmetric field. In particular, consider the 14 etc. component. You then get strange g24 g24 g34, which cooled my confidence below freezing point ... The fact that ga41 is obtained at all in such a static case goes against the grain for me, considering the dynamic nature of these components according to the phenomenological theory. Did that not give you serious concerns?'.

The early career of Cornelius (Cornel) Lanczos (1893-1974) was closely associated with Einstein: he sent his doctoral thesis to Einstein in 1921, his first significant result in 1924 was an exact solution of the Einstein field equation representing a cylindrically symmetric rigidly rotating configuration of dust particles, and in 1928-29 he served as Einstein's assistant. By the time of the present letter he was dividing his time between his home in Hungary and a visiting professorship in Lafayette, Indiana.
Artist:Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
Place of origin:Germany, Switzerland, USA
Auction house category:Medicine & science
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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