Einstein’s relativity notes fetch a record €11.6 million
The Einstein–Besso manuscript, showing the working-out of general relativity, became the most valuable scientific document ever auctioned.
On 23 November 2021, Christie’s in Paris sold the Einstein–Besso manuscript for about €11.6 million (≈ $13 million) — a world record for any scientific document and far above its €3 million estimate. The 54-page working manuscript, written around 1913–14 with his friend Michele Besso, is one of only two surviving drafts that show Einstein wrestling toward general relativity.
Einstein rarely kept his own drafts, which makes the survival of these pages — full of calculations, including an error he left uncorrected — extraordinarily rare. They offer a unique look over the shoulder of a mind building a new picture of gravity.