Einstein's letter about the nuclear program of Nazi Germany was sold for almost 4 million dollars, NOVA reported.
The message to the 32nd US President Franklin Roosevelt was sold at auction for $3.992 million. In it, one of the founders of modern theoretical physics warns that Nazi Germany may develop a nuclear bomb. The value of the document was estimated at 4-6 million dollars. The auction was organized by Christie's auction house.
The letter was typewritten in duplicate and dated August 2, 1939. The text was dictated by Albert Einstein in German and then translated into English by his student, the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard. It was Szilard, along with his colleagues Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller, who asked Einstein to warn the US president about a possible nuclear threat from Nazi Germany.
The first version that was sent to the US president, from 1945, is located in the Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in New York. The second, shorter one, signed by Einstein, was in the private collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Christie's announced the decision to auction the lot in June 2024.