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Albert Einstein Autograph Mathematical Manuscript and Signed Lithograph

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:50,000.00 - 60,000.00 USD
Albert Einstein Autograph Mathematical Manuscript and Signed Lithograph

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Auction Date:2022 Jun 22 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:15th Floor WeWork, Boston, Massachusetts, 02108, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Physics and music have a deep connection dating back to the time of Pythagoras (“the harmony of the spheres”), and Einstein was the personification of that “Pythagorean relationship” in the 20th century. “If I was not a physicist, I would probably be a musician,” Einstein said in a 1929 interview: “I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” Combining an important scientific manuscript with a superb signed image of Einstein playing the violin, these two complementary autographs wonderfully capture Einstein’s essence in both picture and prose.

Emil Orlik’s superb lithograph depicts Einstein at 50 years of age (in 1929) and gives visual substance to Einstein’s statement that “I get most joy in life out of my violin.”

In sober contrast to this delightful image, the present manuscript is a highly abstract and generalized statement of some of the most fundamental equations of Einstein’s later Unified Field Theory. In the 1940s (and continuing until the end of his life), Einstein sought to develop Unified Field Theory by extending the gravity equations of General Relativity, and Einstein is here writing out in prototypical form the tensor equations needed to define the spacetime curvature of a complex metric field. Beginning with a tensor formula “which has no simple symmetry properties” (equation 17a), Einstein here evidences how the permutation of the formula’s indices gives rise to conjugate symmetric and asymmetric tensor components (equations 18 and 19, respectively). It is this essential idea that Einstein will rehearse and thematically vary over the remaining course of his UFT career.

The present manuscript is unpublished and represents some of Einstein’s earliest work on his final version of Unified Field Theory. Orlik’s lithograph is of exceptional rarity and it is probably the case that the image was only printed in a small number of proofs. This is the only signed image of Einstein playing his beloved violin that we have ever offered; and our research locates only one other signed exemplar of the print (at the American Institute of Physics, also a proof copy). Framed together these handsome autographs have outstanding display potential, and they can be imaginatively viewed as “Einstein Composing a Symphony in E = mc2.” In overall fine condition. Accompanied by a transcription and translation of the text in Einstein's mathematical manuscript.