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Auktionsarchiv: Los-Nr. 161

EINSTEIN, Albert. Typed letter signed ("A. Einstein") TO PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, Peconic, Long Island, 2 August 1939, 1½ pages, 4to (10 7/8 by 8½ in.), on one side each of two sheets of typewriter bond paper, tiny punctures in upper righ...

Auction 27.03.2002
27.03.2002
Schätzpreis
800.000 $ - 1.200.000 $
Zuschlagspreis:
2.096.000 $
Auktionsarchiv: Los-Nr. 161

EINSTEIN, Albert. Typed letter signed ("A. Einstein") TO PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, Peconic, Long Island, 2 August 1939, 1½ pages, 4to (10 7/8 by 8½ in.), on one side each of two sheets of typewriter bond paper, tiny punctures in upper righ...

Auction 27.03.2002
27.03.2002
Schätzpreis
800.000 $ - 1.200.000 $
Zuschlagspreis:
2.096.000 $
Beschreibung:

EINSTEIN, Albert. Typed letter signed ("A. Einstein") TO PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, Peconic, Long Island, 2 August 1939, 1½ pages, 4to (10 7/8 by 8½ in.), on one side each of two sheets of typewriter bond paper, tiny punctures in upper right corners from stapling faint penciled note by Leo Szilard at top: "Original, not sent!" [With:] EINSTEIN, Albert. Autograph letter signed ("A. Einstein") to Dr. Leo Szilard (1898-1964), n.p. [Peconic, Long Island], n.d. [probably 9 August 1939], ½ page, 4to, expertly matted with the above and framed with a photographic portrait of Einstein, after Karsh . For text see below. THE BIRTH OF THE BOMB: THE ALTERNATE VERSION OF PERHAPS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SINGLE LETTER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: EINSTEIN'S FAMOUS LETTER WARNING ROOSEVELT OF THE POTENTIAL FOR "THE CONSTRUCTION OF EXTREMELY POWERFUL BOMBS" THROUGH NUCLEAR FISSION The atomic bomb, tested successfully at Alamogordo, New Mexico on 15 July 1945 and first used in warfare with chilling and awesome destructive effects less than a month later at Hiroshima (6 August), was the culmination of a massive and prolonged secret research project involving hundreds of American, British and European refugee scientists engineers and technicians. Its achievement decisively split human history into pre-atomic and atomic eras. The Manhattan Project was itself the outgrowth of a committee convened at the order of the President Roosevelt in October 1939. Roosevelt's historic and momentous initiative was itself a direct response to a remarkable letter from the world's foremost theoretical physicist and an avowed pacifist; a man who, at that time, seemed a virtual personification of modern science: Albert Einstein. This, the alternate version of this fateful letter, reads in full: INDENT THIS TEXT IN BOLD "Recent work in nuclear physics made it probable that uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy. New Experiments performed by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which have been communicated to me in manuscript, make it now appear likely that it will be possible to set up a chain reaction in a large mass of uranium and thereby to liberate considerable quantities of energy. Less certain, but to be kept in mind, is the possibility of making use of such chain reactions for the construction of extremely powerful bombs. Such bombs may be too heavy for transportation by air plane, but not too heavy for being carried by boat, and a single bomb exploded in a port might very well destroy the port together with the surrounding territory." "This being the situation, you may find it desirable that some contact be established between the Administration and the group of physicists who are working in this country on the subject of chain reactions. One possible way of achieving this would be for you to entrust a person who has your confidence, and who could perhaps act in an inofficial capacity, with this task. I understand that Germany has stopped the sale of uranium. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizdcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated. The United States has only poor ores of uranium. Better ores in moderate quantities are mined in the former Czechoslovakia and in Canada, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo." END INDENT AND BOLD The impulse which led to the letter originated not with Einstein but with the Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard, a former student of Einstein's, who, like Fermi, Teller, Einstein and a host of other European scientists and researchers, had been driven from his homeland to the United States by the threat of Hitler's European aggression and persecution. In fact, the collaboration of Einstein and Szilard, motivated by their fears of German war preparations and nuclear research, generated not one, b

Auktionsarchiv: Los-Nr. 161
Auktion:
Datum:
27.03.2002
Auktionshaus:
Christie's
New York, Rockefeller Center
Beschreibung:

EINSTEIN, Albert. Typed letter signed ("A. Einstein") TO PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, Peconic, Long Island, 2 August 1939, 1½ pages, 4to (10 7/8 by 8½ in.), on one side each of two sheets of typewriter bond paper, tiny punctures in upper right corners from stapling faint penciled note by Leo Szilard at top: "Original, not sent!" [With:] EINSTEIN, Albert. Autograph letter signed ("A. Einstein") to Dr. Leo Szilard (1898-1964), n.p. [Peconic, Long Island], n.d. [probably 9 August 1939], ½ page, 4to, expertly matted with the above and framed with a photographic portrait of Einstein, after Karsh . For text see below. THE BIRTH OF THE BOMB: THE ALTERNATE VERSION OF PERHAPS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SINGLE LETTER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: EINSTEIN'S FAMOUS LETTER WARNING ROOSEVELT OF THE POTENTIAL FOR "THE CONSTRUCTION OF EXTREMELY POWERFUL BOMBS" THROUGH NUCLEAR FISSION The atomic bomb, tested successfully at Alamogordo, New Mexico on 15 July 1945 and first used in warfare with chilling and awesome destructive effects less than a month later at Hiroshima (6 August), was the culmination of a massive and prolonged secret research project involving hundreds of American, British and European refugee scientists engineers and technicians. Its achievement decisively split human history into pre-atomic and atomic eras. The Manhattan Project was itself the outgrowth of a committee convened at the order of the President Roosevelt in October 1939. Roosevelt's historic and momentous initiative was itself a direct response to a remarkable letter from the world's foremost theoretical physicist and an avowed pacifist; a man who, at that time, seemed a virtual personification of modern science: Albert Einstein. This, the alternate version of this fateful letter, reads in full: INDENT THIS TEXT IN BOLD "Recent work in nuclear physics made it probable that uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy. New Experiments performed by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which have been communicated to me in manuscript, make it now appear likely that it will be possible to set up a chain reaction in a large mass of uranium and thereby to liberate considerable quantities of energy. Less certain, but to be kept in mind, is the possibility of making use of such chain reactions for the construction of extremely powerful bombs. Such bombs may be too heavy for transportation by air plane, but not too heavy for being carried by boat, and a single bomb exploded in a port might very well destroy the port together with the surrounding territory." "This being the situation, you may find it desirable that some contact be established between the Administration and the group of physicists who are working in this country on the subject of chain reactions. One possible way of achieving this would be for you to entrust a person who has your confidence, and who could perhaps act in an inofficial capacity, with this task. I understand that Germany has stopped the sale of uranium. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizdcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated. The United States has only poor ores of uranium. Better ores in moderate quantities are mined in the former Czechoslovakia and in Canada, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo." END INDENT AND BOLD The impulse which led to the letter originated not with Einstein but with the Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard, a former student of Einstein's, who, like Fermi, Teller, Einstein and a host of other European scientists and researchers, had been driven from his homeland to the United States by the threat of Hitler's European aggression and persecution. In fact, the collaboration of Einstein and Szilard, motivated by their fears of German war preparations and nuclear research, generated not one, b

Auktionsarchiv: Los-Nr. 161
Auktion:
Datum:
27.03.2002
Auktionshaus:
Christie's
New York, Rockefeller Center
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