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Science and Medicine
Lot 61
AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION OFFPRINT ON RELATIVITY. EINSTEIN, ALBERT. 1879-1955. "Zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie (mit Nachtrag)" ["On General Relativity (with Addendum)"]. OFFPRINT FROM: Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften XLIV, November 4, 1915 & XLV. XLVI, November 11, 1915. Berlin: Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1915.
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AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION OFFPRINT ON RELATIVITY.
EINSTEIN, ALBERT. 1879-1955. "Zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie (mit Nachtrag)" ["On General Relativity (with Addendum)"]. OFFPRINT FROM: Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften XLIV, November 4, 1915 & XLV. XLVI, November 11, 1915. Berlin: Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1915.
4to. Publisher's printed orange wrappers, with "Überreicht vom Verfasser" printed upper right, later note in pencil "Einstein" upper left.
Provenance: Rudolf Humm (student-assistant of David Hilbert at Gottingen, his ink inscription, "R. Humm, Berlin 23.V.1917").
"The theory is beautiful beyond comparison."
-Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, November 26, 1915.
THE FIRST STATEMENT OF THE FINALIZED THEORY OF GENERAL RELATIVITY – A FINE BRIGHT AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION OFFPRINT WITH SIGNIFICANT PROVENANCE. On November 4, 1915, Einstein presented to the Prussian Academy the first of four papers intended to establish the definitive field equations for General Relativity. The first paper began by announcing that Einstein had "completely lost faith" in the equations he had presented just a year earlier (in October 1914), and then proceeded to give the first iteration of his final field equations for general relativity. Still not fully satisfied with these equations, however, Einstein on November 11 presented an addendum ("Nachtrag") to this initial statement — here printed together with his initial paper — in which he "finally succeeded in finding generally covariant field equations that reduced to the weak-field form of equation" (Norton, "How Einstein Found His Field Equations: 1912-1915," p 309). Einstein was ebullient about this breakthrough achievement, waxing lyrical, "No one who has really grasped it can escape the magic of this [new] theory" (Pais, Subtle is the Lord, p 251).
Author presentation copies of this highly important paper are extremely rare, and this copy carries a meaningful scientific association from the center of the development of General Relativity, bearing the ownership inscription of Rudolf Humm, who attended the university at Gottingen and worked with David Hilbert on relativity in 1916. In 1917, Humm attended classes in Berlin taught by Einstein himself, and in May 1917, near to or on the date of Humm's inscription, Einstein invited Humm to his house for dinner, where among other things they discussed Hilbert's work. Famously, Einstein and Hilbert had formerly been colleagues on good terms, but their relationship soured after Hilbert erroneously claimed priority of discovery for the field equations of General Relativity. Humm's ambitions to attain a doctoral degree ultimately went unrealized, but in later life he achieved some success as a novelist — leading Hilbert to famously quip "He did not have enough imagination for mathematics!" An extraordinary rarity of one of Einstein's most important works. Weil 75.
4to. Publisher's printed orange wrappers, with "Überreicht vom Verfasser" printed upper right, later note in pencil "Einstein" upper left.
Provenance: Rudolf Humm (student-assistant of David Hilbert at Gottingen, his ink inscription, "R. Humm, Berlin 23.V.1917").
"The theory is beautiful beyond comparison."
-Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, November 26, 1915.
THE FIRST STATEMENT OF THE FINALIZED THEORY OF GENERAL RELATIVITY – A FINE BRIGHT AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION OFFPRINT WITH SIGNIFICANT PROVENANCE. On November 4, 1915, Einstein presented to the Prussian Academy the first of four papers intended to establish the definitive field equations for General Relativity. The first paper began by announcing that Einstein had "completely lost faith" in the equations he had presented just a year earlier (in October 1914), and then proceeded to give the first iteration of his final field equations for general relativity. Still not fully satisfied with these equations, however, Einstein on November 11 presented an addendum ("Nachtrag") to this initial statement — here printed together with his initial paper — in which he "finally succeeded in finding generally covariant field equations that reduced to the weak-field form of equation" (Norton, "How Einstein Found His Field Equations: 1912-1915," p 309). Einstein was ebullient about this breakthrough achievement, waxing lyrical, "No one who has really grasped it can escape the magic of this [new] theory" (Pais, Subtle is the Lord, p 251).
Author presentation copies of this highly important paper are extremely rare, and this copy carries a meaningful scientific association from the center of the development of General Relativity, bearing the ownership inscription of Rudolf Humm, who attended the university at Gottingen and worked with David Hilbert on relativity in 1916. In 1917, Humm attended classes in Berlin taught by Einstein himself, and in May 1917, near to or on the date of Humm's inscription, Einstein invited Humm to his house for dinner, where among other things they discussed Hilbert's work. Famously, Einstein and Hilbert had formerly been colleagues on good terms, but their relationship soured after Hilbert erroneously claimed priority of discovery for the field equations of General Relativity. Humm's ambitions to attain a doctoral degree ultimately went unrealized, but in later life he achieved some success as a novelist — leading Hilbert to famously quip "He did not have enough imagination for mathematics!" An extraordinary rarity of one of Einstein's most important works. Weil 75.