Einstein handwritten letter with well known E=mc2 equation gets $1.2m
A good handwritten letter by Albert Einstein that contains his famous E=mc2 equation has sold at auction for more than $1.2m, around three times more than it had been expected to get, a good Boston-based auction residence said on Friday.
Albert Einstein's 'God letter' reflecting on religion auctioned for $3m Archivists at the Einstein Papers Job at the California Institute of Technology and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem say there are just three other known examples of Einstein posting the world-changing equation in his own hand.
RR Auction, which sold the newest letter, says this 4th example is the only one found in an exclusive collection and just became consumer recently. The auction home had anticipated it to market for about $400,000.
"It's a crucial letter from equally a holographic and a physics viewpoint," Bobby Livingston, the executive vice-president at RR Auction said, phoning the equation the most well-known in the world.
The equation - energy equals mass times the speed of light squared - evolved physics by demonstrating that point was not absolute and that mass and energy were equivalent.
The one-page handwritten letter in German to the Polish American physicist Ludwik Silberstein is dated 26 October 1946. Silberstein was a well-known critic and challenger to some of Einstein's theories. "Your question could be answered from the E=mc2 formula, with no erudition," Einstein wrote in the letter created on Princeton University letterhead, according to a translation provided by RR Auction.
The letter was part of Silberstein's personal archives, that have been sold by his descendants.
The buyer was recognized by RR only as an anonymous file collector.
The rarity of the letter set off a bidding war, Livingston said. Five parties were bidding aggressively at first, but after the price reached about $700,000, it started to be a two-get together contest, he said.
The auction started on 13 May and concluded on Thursday.
