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EINSTEIN, ALBERT & KURT GÖDEL Original color slide, 50 x 50 cm including Kodachrome mount, Princeton,[December 5, 1947], depicting Einstein and Gödel walking, image 1
EINSTEIN, ALBERT & KURT GÖDEL Original color slide, 50 x 50 cm including Kodachrome mount, Princeton,[December 5, 1947], depicting Einstein and Gödel walking, image 2
EINSTEIN, ALBERT & KURT GÖDEL Original color slide, 50 x 50 cm including Kodachrome mount, Princeton,[December 5, 1947], depicting Einstein and Gödel walking, image 3
Lot 21

EINSTEIN, ALBERT & KURT GÖDEL
Original color slide, 50 x 50 cm including Kodachrome mount, Princeton,[December 5, 1947], depicting Einstein and Gödel walking,

5 November 2020, 10:00 PST
Los Angeles

Sold for US$1,020 inc. premium

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EINSTEIN, ALBERT & KURT GÖDEL

Original color slide, 50 x 50 cm including Kodachrome mount, Princeton,[December 5, 1947], depicting Einstein and Gödel walking, mount evenly toned, image bright.
Provenance: Oskar Morgenstern, by descent.

Classic image of two of the great figures of the 20th century strolling in Princeton. Economist Oskar Morgenstern, who proportedly captured this image recounts that toward the end of his life Einstein confided that his "own work no longer meant much, that he came to the Institute [of Advanced Study at Princeton] merely ... to have the privilege of walking home with Gödel."
According to a note on a period print held by the family, this photo was taken the day that Einstein and Morgenstern accompanied Gödel to his U.S. Citizenship exam. The story was recounted by Morgenstern years later: Gödel had claimed that he found an inconsistency in the U.S. Constitution that would allow the country to fall into a dictaorship, much like what he had experienced in Austria. The two friends advised him to not mention this during the exam. Of course, the exam somehow veered into this territory and Gödel was about to launch into his discovery, but the judge, Phillip Forman, who had known Einstein, quickly changed the subject as he saw Gödel's direction and soon brought the exam to a succesful close.

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