EINSTEIN, Albert (1879-1955). Autograph letter signed (“A. Einstein”) to Paul Epstein, Princeton, 8 November 1945.

EINSTEIN, Albert (1879-1955). Autograph letter signed (“A. Einstein”) to Paul Epstein, Princeton, 8 November 1945.

In German. Three pages, 282 x 218mm, with two sketched diagrams.

Einstein explains quantum entanglement with a three-page "simple thought experiment". Following on from his previous letter (see lot 37), Einstein attempts to set the record straight regarding his own understanding of the famous EPR ‘Gedankenexperiment’.

“I myself first came upon the argument starting from a simple thought experiment. I think it will be best for us if I walk you through it…”. With the aid of two diagrams involving a mirrored box, a screen, and an axis, Einstein presents the entire experiment as he first envisioned it. “Thus I incline to the opinion that the wave function does not (completely) describe what is real, but only a to us empirically accessible maximal knowledge regarding that which really exists,” he concludes here. “This is what I mean when I advance the view that quantum mechanics gives an incomplete description of the real state of affairs… I do not believe that this will prove to be the correct path for the long run”. It was not until 2016 that Einstein would be proven wrong.

Einstein scholar Don Howard calls Einstein’s letters to Epstein “the only direct account that Einstein himself ever gave of the history of these Gedankenexperimente” (“The Prehistory of EPR”, in Miller, ed., Sixty-two Years of Uncertainty. 1990, pp. 61-111).

Pre-Lot Text
PROPERTY FROM THE DESCENDANTS OF PAUL S. EPSTEIN (1883-1966)