Posted on Friday 16 May 2008
As part of Bloomsbury Auctions 25-year Anniversary sale held on Thursday 15th, the Mayfair auction house sold an Einstein
letter for more than £200,000 ($400,000), a remarkable success considering the pre-sale estimate of £6000 – 8000.
Bloomsbury has not disclosed the identity of the buyer, but the managing director Rupert Powell did reveal it was someone with “a passion for theoretical physics and all that entails.”
"This extraordinary letter seemed to strike a chord, and it gave a deep personal insight one of the greatest minds of the 20th century," Powell said.
In the letter, written to the philosopher Eric Gutkind in 1954, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the “product of human weakness” and the Bible as “pretty childish”
Einstein experts say the letter validates the claim that the physicist held complex, agnostic views on religion. Although he rejected organized faith, Einstein often spoke of a spiritual force at work in the universe.
letter for more than £200,000 ($400,000), a remarkable success considering the pre-sale estimate of £6000 – 8000. Bloomsbury has not disclosed the identity of the buyer, but the managing director Rupert Powell did reveal it was someone with “a passion for theoretical physics and all that entails.”
"This extraordinary letter seemed to strike a chord, and it gave a deep personal insight one of the greatest minds of the 20th century," Powell said.
In the letter, written to the philosopher Eric Gutkind in 1954, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the “product of human weakness” and the Bible as “pretty childish”
Einstein experts say the letter validates the claim that the physicist held complex, agnostic views on religion. Although he rejected organized faith, Einstein often spoke of a spiritual force at work in the universe.