See Albert Einstein's Letters Up Close
Read a collection of letters written by the eminent astrophysicist.
Apr 24, 2017
BY Luke Crafton
At the Virginia Beach ROADSHOW in June 2016, Books & Manuscripts expert John Schulman discussed a collection of three letters from Albert Einstein a guest named Frances inherited from her father-in-law, Raymond Seeger, a theoretical physicist who had worked for the Naval Bureau of Ordnances during World War II.
Written between 1943 and 1944, the letters deal with several complicated technical questions on which Einstein's input had been sought. The first concerns the physics of how torpedoes might work in relation to ships — and includes diagrams in Einstein's own hand. The second letter is a discussion of thermical theory. The third, which Schulman called the best, is titled "General remark concerning the chemical process of detonation in the function of time," and bears a number of Einstein's handwritten corrections.
Each of these is signed, and this first one has Einstein's little drawings of torpedoes.
Schulman placed an auction estimate of $60,000 to $100,000 on the set as a whole. We've put high-resolution scans in the gallery below so you can read the letters for yourself.
This letter concerns the physics of how torpedoes might work in relation to ships — and includes diagrams in Einstein's own hand.
