EINSTEIN ALBERT (1879-1955).

Lot 66
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Result : 6 240EUR
EINSTEIN ALBERT (1879-1955).
Signed autograph letter, signed « Dein Papa », Old Lyme, Connecticut, 16 June 1935, to his son Hans Albert EINSTEIN; 1 page in-4 format; in German. 5 Letter to his eldest son, encouraging him in his research, discussing his own research on the atom and expressing his worry concerning the Hitlerian regime. The letter is visionary as Einstein forsees the upcoming catastrophe facing Europe. Einstein responds enthusiastically to news of Hans Albert’s progress in his doctorate in hydraulics, in particular on the path of a stone through moving water, and suggests an experimental test, though this will be tricky. He offers to support the financial costs of the doctorate: ‘I can still remember very clearly how difficult I found it to steer the weak financial boat past this cliff’. On his own scientific work, ‘What I have discovered is that the centrally symmetrical solutions of the neutral mass-point and of the electrical mass can be understood as fields free of singularity. This provides a possibility of constructing a general relativistic theory of atomic processes. The mathematical obstacles however to further exposition are very great’. Einstein then turns to the international situation: ‘If Europe continues to react so weakly to Hitlerism, there will be a major catastrophe. They let MacDonald [Ramsay MacDonald, British Prime Minister, 1931-35] economize for too long (« Wenn Europa sich weiter so schwächlich zergt gegen die Hitlerei, wird es dort eine grosse Katastrophe geben. Man hat diesen Tölpel Mac Donald zu lange wirtschaften lassen. »). Here in America there is a very high unemployment rate among academics, so that there are almost no prospects for you at the moment’; but he encourages Hans Albert to send an application to Professor Karman at the California Institute of Technology and to learn English. He finishes happy to announce that he has rented a small sailboat for the summer, the best way to maintain his aged bones (« Dies is
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