Before General Relativity: The Einstein-Besso Manuscript Sells For $13 Million

By Hank Campbell in Science 2.0

November 29, 2021

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A 54-page manuscript written jointly by Albert Einstein and Michele Besso just sold for over $13,000,000, quadrupling its pre-sale estimate - a new world auction for any science manuscript.

The Einstein-Besso Manuscript on General Relativity is one of only two surviving manuscripts documenting the genesis of general relativity. The other, known as the Zurich notebook from late 1912/early 1913, is in the Einstein Archive at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The just-auctioned work provides insight into Einstein's work and documents a crucial stage in the development of the theory of general relativity, which reshaped modern understanding of how the universe works.

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