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Lot 62
EINSTEIN'S FIRST TWO PAPERS ON GRAVITATIONAL WAVES. "Näherungsweise Integration der Feldgleichungen der Gravitation" (1916) [WITH] "Über Gravitationswellen" (1918):
24 April – 4 May 2023, 12:00 EDT
Online, New YorkUS$4,000 - US$6,000
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EINSTEIN'S FIRST TWO PAPERS ON GRAVITATIONAL WAVES.
"Näherungsweise Integration der Feldgleichungen der Gravitation" (1916) [WITH] "Über Gravitationswellen" (1918):
1. "Näherungsweise Integration der Feldgleichungen der Gravitation" ["Approximate Integration of the Field Equations of Gravitation"]; APPEARING IN: Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften XXXII. XXXIII. 1916. Berlin: Verlag der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1916.
4to. Publisher's printed orange wrappers, leaves unopened.
Provenance: Christian Heuer (his bookplate tipped inside front cover).
2. "Über Gravitationswellen" ["On Gravitational Waves"]; APPEARING IN: Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften VI. VII. VIII. 1918. Berlin: Verlag der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1918.
4to. Publisher's printed orange wrappers, leaves unopened, minor wear.
Provenance: Gmelin-Institut für Anorganische Chemie und Grenzgebiete (stamp to upper cover).
FIRST EDITIONS OF EINSTEIN'S FIRST TWO MAJOR PAPERS PREDICTING GRAVITATIONAL WAVES UNDER GENERAL RELATIVITY. In November 1915, Einstein had completely uprooted Newtonian models of the universe with his announcement of General Relativity. In 1916, he began to work out the multifaceted consequences of relativity, leading to his first groundbreaking paper predicting the existence of gravitational waves presented to the Academy on June 22. In February, 1918, he published a second paper, correcting an error from the 1st paper and positing his "quadrupole formula," and for the first time calculating the effects of gravitational waves. These two papers form the fabric of Einstein's revolutionary theory, so far ahead of its time and so controversial that its effects would not be observed by instrumentation for another 100 years.
In 1974, measuring the orbital decay of the Hulse–Taylor binary pulsar, Hulse and Taylor were able to confirm that the decay as energy was lost to gravitational radiation matched that predicted by Einstein's general relativity. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1993 for their work, the first indirect evidence of Einstein's prescience.
Finally, in September 2015, nearly 100 years to the month of Einstein's publication of general relativity, the newly Advanced LIGO detectors, built to measure gravitational waves, recorded the first direct evidence confirming Einstein's predictions, in the form of a major collision of two black holes. By mid-January 1916, two more had been detected, and with the publication of a LIGO collaborative paper in February 2016 announcing the detection of gravitational waves, Einstein's theories were confirmed.
These two major Einstein papers form the most important early literature on gravitational waves and are rare in any format. Weil 86 (Einstein 1916b) and Weil 97 (Einstein 1918).
1. "Näherungsweise Integration der Feldgleichungen der Gravitation" ["Approximate Integration of the Field Equations of Gravitation"]; APPEARING IN: Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften XXXII. XXXIII. 1916. Berlin: Verlag der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1916.
4to. Publisher's printed orange wrappers, leaves unopened.
Provenance: Christian Heuer (his bookplate tipped inside front cover).
2. "Über Gravitationswellen" ["On Gravitational Waves"]; APPEARING IN: Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften VI. VII. VIII. 1918. Berlin: Verlag der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1918.
4to. Publisher's printed orange wrappers, leaves unopened, minor wear.
Provenance: Gmelin-Institut für Anorganische Chemie und Grenzgebiete (stamp to upper cover).
FIRST EDITIONS OF EINSTEIN'S FIRST TWO MAJOR PAPERS PREDICTING GRAVITATIONAL WAVES UNDER GENERAL RELATIVITY. In November 1915, Einstein had completely uprooted Newtonian models of the universe with his announcement of General Relativity. In 1916, he began to work out the multifaceted consequences of relativity, leading to his first groundbreaking paper predicting the existence of gravitational waves presented to the Academy on June 22. In February, 1918, he published a second paper, correcting an error from the 1st paper and positing his "quadrupole formula," and for the first time calculating the effects of gravitational waves. These two papers form the fabric of Einstein's revolutionary theory, so far ahead of its time and so controversial that its effects would not be observed by instrumentation for another 100 years.
In 1974, measuring the orbital decay of the Hulse–Taylor binary pulsar, Hulse and Taylor were able to confirm that the decay as energy was lost to gravitational radiation matched that predicted by Einstein's general relativity. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1993 for their work, the first indirect evidence of Einstein's prescience.
Finally, in September 2015, nearly 100 years to the month of Einstein's publication of general relativity, the newly Advanced LIGO detectors, built to measure gravitational waves, recorded the first direct evidence confirming Einstein's predictions, in the form of a major collision of two black holes. By mid-January 1916, two more had been detected, and with the publication of a LIGO collaborative paper in February 2016 announcing the detection of gravitational waves, Einstein's theories were confirmed.
These two major Einstein papers form the most important early literature on gravitational waves and are rare in any format. Weil 86 (Einstein 1916b) and Weil 97 (Einstein 1918).