The Value of the Einstein-Besso Manuscript

IF 0.1 3区 哲学 Q4 HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Michel Janssen
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

On November 23, 2021, a manuscript consisting of about fifty pages of scratchpad calculations by Albert Einstein and his close friend Michele Besso sold at auction in Paris for a record $11.5 million. Most of these calculations date from 1913 and deal with the secular motion of Mercury’s perihelion. Einstein and Besso could only account for eighteen of the forty-three seconds of arc per century missing from the Newtonian account of this motion. In November 1915, drawing on this work with Besso, Einstein was able to account for all forty-three seconds. In the early 1990s, I prepared the Einstein-Besso manuscript for publication in volume four of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein and wrote an essay about it for the auction catalog the first two times it changed hands, for $360,000 in 1996, for $500,000 in 2002. Rather than on the manuscript’s increasing monetary value, however, this essay focuses on its intellectual significance and its importance for my academic career.

Abstract Image

爱因斯坦-贝索手稿的价值
2021 年 11 月 23 日,爱因斯坦和他的密友米歇尔-贝索(Michele Besso)在巴黎拍卖会上以创纪录的 1 150 万美元拍出了一份手稿,其中包括约 50 页的草稿纸计算结果。这些计算大多是在 1913 年进行的,涉及水星近日点的世俗运动。爱因斯坦和贝索只能解释牛顿关于这一运动的解释中缺少的每世纪 43 秒弧度中的 18 秒。1915 年 11 月,根据与贝索的合作,爱因斯坦解释了全部 43 秒。20 世纪 90 年代初,我准备将爱因斯坦-贝索的手稿收入《阿尔伯特-爱因斯坦文集》第四卷出版,并为拍卖目录撰写了一篇关于该手稿的文章,该手稿曾两次易手:1996 年以 36 万美元易手,2002 年以 50 万美元易手。不过,这篇文章的重点不是手稿日益增长的金钱价值,而是它的思想意义及其对我学术生涯的重要性。
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来源期刊
Physics in Perspective
Physics in Perspective 物理-科学史与科学哲学
CiteScore
0.60
自引率
0.00%
发文量
10
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: Physics in Perspective seeks to bridge the gulf between physicists and non-physicists through historical and philosophical studies that typically display the unpredictable as well as the cross-disciplinary interplay of observation, experiment, and theory that has occurred over extended periods of time in academic, governmental, and industrial settings and in allied disciplines such as astrophysics, chemical physics, and geophysics. The journal also publishes first-person accounts by physicists of significant contributions they have made, biographical articles, book reviews, and guided tours of historical sites in cities throughout the world. It strives to make all articles understandable to a broad spectrum of readers – scientists, teachers, students, and the public at large. Bibliographic Data Phys. Perspect. 1 volume per year, 4 issues per volume approx. 500 pages per volume Format: 15.5 x 23.5cm ISSN 1422-6944 (print) ISSN 1422-6960 (electronic)
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