Name: 'The exploration of the electron question'
Brand: Kiel, 4 August 1925
Price: 11000.00 USD
Availability: SoldOut

Albert Einstein (1879-1955). Autograph picture postcard signed (‘Albert’) to Michele Besso, Kiel, 4 August 1925.

In German, half page, 142 x 92mm. The recto showing a photographic panorama of the port of Kiel.

Please note this is the property of a private consignor.

Published in Pierre Speziali (ed.) Albert Einstein. Michele Besso. Correspondance 1903-1955. Paris: Hermann, 1972. No. 78

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Lot Essay

Visits to his first wife and to a seriously ill friend – and work on 'the exploration of the electron question'.

Einstein very much regrets not having been able to visit Besso, but time was short, and he had to visit his first wife Mileva, and also his friend Marcel Grossmann, who is suffering from an onset of paralysis and serious speech difficulties [Grossmann was to die of multiple sclerosis in 1936]. He permits Besso to discuss the scientific problem (see previous lot) with anybody, 'I only wish to reserve the exploration of the electron question to myself, out of respect to my collaborator [Jacob Grommer]'.

The mathematician Marcel Grossmann was a friend of Einstein's from their schooldays, and also a crucial collaborator in the elaboration of the general theory of relativity.