EINSTEIN ALBERT: (1879-1955) German-born theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize winner for Physics, 1921

EINSTEIN ALBERT: (1879-1955) German-born theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize winner for Physics, 1921

Einstein writes to his fellow (future) Nobel Laureate, Jean Baptiste Perrin,
the physicist who had verified Einstein’s predictions,
thereby confirming the atomic nature of matter

 

EINSTEIN ALBERT: (1879-1955) German-born theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize winner for Physics, 1921. An excellent A.L.S., A. Einstein, one page, 4to, n.p., 27^th September 1919, to [Jean Baptiste] Perrin, in German. Einstein announces 'How glad I am to hear from you directly again after these long bad years', and comments 'I can assure you that during this time our ardent desires and fears were more "connected in parallel" than one could have guessed from the external circumstances', adding 'But now my fear goes further because in my opinion poisonous weeds can grow in every field next to the good grain if the circumstances are favourable; I think it's more about them than the soil'. Einstein also writes of his hope that he will be able to talk with Perrin again sometime, 'I will never forget the happy hours I spent with you, Langevin and Ms. Curie in Paris and Brussels. Maybe one day it will happen in Holland or Switzerland; I probably won't be able to go to Paris with my Swabian French in the foreseeable future' and asks Perrin to send 'your new work on the role of radiation in chemical reactions which Pierre Weiss has already told me about', explaining that he is reciprocating the gesture and sending some of his own work from the last few years to Perrin, although regretting that he has no special copies from the publications that he would most like to send. A letter of fine scientific associations. Some very light, minor overall creasing and just a couple of extremely small tears to the edges of the central horizontal fold, otherwise VG

Jean Baptiste Perrin (1870-1942) French physicist who, in his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles suspended in liquids, verified Einstein's explanation of this phenomenon and thereby confirmed the atomic nature of matter (sedimentation equilibrium). Nobel Prize winner for Physics, 1926.

Paul Langevin (1872-1946) French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. A doctoral student of Pierre Curie, Langevin was later a lover of the widowed Marie Curie.

Marie Curie (1867-1934) Polish-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. Nobel Prize winner for Physics, 1903, and for Chemistry, 1911, thereby becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person and only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.

Autograph letters of Einstein to fellow Nobel Laureates very seldom appear at auction, and the presnt example is greatly enhanced by its reference to Marie Curie.