Albert Einstein's handwritten notes for the theory of relativity reached a fantastic record price of 11.6 million euros, at an auction in Paris on Tuesday (23/11).
According to Christie's, the agency that held the auction, the manuscript is the most expensive Einstein writing ever sold.
"Without a doubt, this is the most valuable Einstein manuscript ever auctioned," said a spokeswoman for Christie's, as quoted by Live Science.
The document is considered special, in part because of its subject matter. Written between June 1913 and early 1914, this manuscript is an attempt by Einstein and his engineer friend Michele Besso to elucidate a cosmic mystery.
This note specifically explains that Mercury's orbital path is only a hair's throw away from what Isaac Newton's laws of motion predicted, using the ideas and equations that would eventually form the basis of Einstein's theory of relativity as we know it today.
Christie's details that 26 pages of the manuscript were handwritten by Einstein, 24 pages by Besso, and three pages co-written by the two.
There are also marginal notes that often show every scientist commenting on the work of others, in one important case, Einstein commenting on his own work by writing "stimmt!", German for "successful!", in the margin of one of his pages describing the relative rotation of the sphere.
Unfortunately, this duo of scientists failed to explain the differences in Mercury's orbit in this manuscript. However, the equations they developed led directly to Einstein's equations of general relativity, which are still used to describe relationships between objects in space today.
The manuscript is also remarkable for its rarity. According to auction house Christie's, Einstein rarely kept drafts of his own writings and correspondence. Besso, on the other hand, preserved much of his work with Einstein for posterity. Thanks to Besso, this manuscript is one of only two extant concepts that demonstrate the basis of general relativity.