Sell Your Max Planck Autograph at Nate D. Sanders Auctions
To auction, sell or consign your Max Planck autograph, please email your description and photos to [email protected] of Nate D. Sanders Auctions (NateDSanders.com).
Sell Your Max Planck Autograph
Max Planck was a German physicist who won the 1918 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on energy quanta. He is also considered the founder of “quantum theory” and was one of Albert Einstein’s initial supporters. Here’s a Max Planck autograph letter we sold:
Lively autograph letter signed by Nobel winning quantum physicist pioneer Max Planck, who writes to fellow physicist Paul Epstein. Dated 19 January 1938, Planck muses on the first law of thermodynamics (before it was recognized as such), responding to Epstein’s mention of the 18th century scientist Albrecht von Haller learning that liquid warms by shaking. On Planck’s personal stationery, letter in German reads in full, ”Dear Doctor! / Your kind letter of the 17th of this month and the attached article on the background of the first fundamental theorem gave me great pleasure, for which I thank you sincerely. Concerning the content of your essay, your mentioning of [Albrecht von] Haller’s finding that ‘water, as well as milk, when moved vigorously, could reach a certain degree of warmth,’ was of particular interest to me. I remember exactly one of the stories told by my teacher in Munich, Philipp [von] Jolly, who was personally acquainted with J. R. [Julius Robert von] Mayer, relating that one day Mayer had burst into his room exclaiming, full of a discoverer’s joy, that water could be warmed by means of vigorous shaking. So someone else had already arrived there first after all. / But your letter made me happy in personal terms as well, since it was the first direct sign of life from you after some time. I am in awe about how much, considering your weakened physical condition, particularly with respect to your vision, you are still able to achieve. Many would envy even your firm handwriting. May this mental acuity remain with you during the new year as well. Very warm regards. / Yours respectfully, / M. Planck”. Two page letter on a single sheet measures 5.875” x 7”. Single fold, staple puncture and light toning. Very good condition. Sold for $2,500.
To auction, sell or consign your Max Planck autograph, please email your description and photos to [email protected] of Nate D. Sanders Auctions (NateDSanders.com).