The document is estimated to be worth between 2 million euros and 3 million euros ($2.2 million to $3.4 million), making it the most valuable Einstein manuscript ever sold at auction, according to auction house Christie’s.
It contains 26 pages by Einstein and 25 by Besso, along with three pages of entries by both, and is also considered a valuable record of the German scientist’s relationship with Besso.
The calculations by Einstein and Besso are recorded in the manuscript. Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s / Aguttes
According to Christie’s, which is auctioning to auction house Aguttes, the document describes a “critical period in the development of general relativity that has reshaped the modern understanding of how it works.” The universe.”
The manuscript, written from June 1913 to early 1914, contains calculations made by Einstein and Besso on special relativity and the problem of anomalies in the orbit of the planet Mercury. But it was populated by unnoticed errors and was eventually brushed aside by Einstein, Christie’s said.
Adrien Legendre, director of the Book and Manuscripts Department at Christie’s, in a press release.
The manuscript records a “critical period” in the development of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s / Aguttes
Legendre added: “As one of only two surviving manuscripts documenting the origins of general relativity … it provides a remarkable insight into Einstein’s work and a deep dive into mind of the greatest scientist of the 20th century”.
In November 1915, under his own name, Einstein published a series of four papers on general relativity.
He reverted to a methodology based on physical rather than mathematical principles and was then able to establish valid case equations for his new theory. Einstein was able to prove the theory he and Besso were working on, regarding an anomaly in Mercury’s orbit, and thus fulfilled the promise in their manuscript, Christie’s said.
The publication of Einstein’s theory of relativity was the key to his becoming a famous name in the scientific world. Six years later, in 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in physics.
