May 22, 2014 - Sale 2351

Sale 2351 - Lot 56

Price Realized: $ 4,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 250 - $ 350
DIRAC, PAUL A.M. Autograph Letter Signed, "P A M Dirac," to Jeremy Bernstein, responding to a proposal for a biographical article about himself. 1/2 page, 4to, "Institute for Advanced Study" stationery; short closed separations at folds. Princeton, 12 December 1962

Additional Details

". . . I feel doubtful about the project because my life has been too straightforward and uneventful, and I do not see how you could get enough material for an article in the New Yorker. I think it would be better for you to write about some scientist who is more in the public eye, such as Oppenheimer or Wigner."
Dirac (1902-1984) was a legendary physicist among physicists, little known elsewhere; he made significant contributions to quantum mechanics, including his frequently cited 1928 paper on the relativistic wave equation.