Two letters that Albert Einstein wrote in 1938 to a university student in US, including one in which the 20th-century genius admits that the young scholar corrected his math, could fetch up to a whopping USD 400,000 at an auction here.
Twenty-three-year-old graduate student, Herbert E Salzer, was completing his Master's thesis at Columbia University when he wrote to Einstein in August 1938 about an error in his distant parallelism field theory.
Despite prolonged efforts to develop a unified field theory concerning gravitation and electromagnetic fields, Einstein completely abandoned all work on this venture around 1931.
Einstein in a reply to Salzer's letter, rather assuredly stated the mathematical reasons behind the continued defense of his stalled work.
However, two weeks after replying to Salzer, Einstein wrote to the young student again, but this time he changed his tune.
Stating "your transformation equation is right, mine is wrong", Einstein enthusiastically and humbly admitted to locating the miscalculation only after having corresponded with Salzer.
After Salzer's letter Einstein revisited his previously abandoned search for an acceptable set of field equations to justify his approach for a unified theory on Distant Parallelism.
Although Salzer only wrote to Albert Einstein once, Einstein replied with two letters to the then young scholar, dated little more than two weeks apart.
The first letter dated 29 August 1938 was double-sided. It shows Einstein explaining to Salzer that he (Einstein) is convinced there could be no physical representation of the corresponding mathematics suggested by Salzer, and Einstein goes on to illustrate that what was suggested is not possible.
This initial response from Einstein came in an envelope postmarked 13 September 1938 and addressed to Salzer in Brooklyn, complete with a return address of "Morton's Cottage, Nassau Point, Peconic L.I.N.Y." and a three-cent George Washington stamp.
The second letter is also double-sided and dated 13 September 1938. The contents of this letter explain that by revisiting the work done in order to answer Salzer the first time, Einstein was prompted to revise the first approximation and only then saw that the student was correct all along.
The letters will be auctioned on November 7 at Guernsey's Auction House, New York, and could fetch close to USD 400,000, 'New York Post' reported.
Salzer went on to become a mathematician, scientist, and inventor who eventually settled on Washington Avenue near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He passed away in 2006.
