Dutch physicist (1853-1928) who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. ALS signed “H. A. Lorentz,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.5 x 7, March 19, 1925. Handwritten letter to Dr. Ludwik Silberstein, in part: "I thank you very much for the second edition of your book on the theory of relativity, which I appreciate both for itself and as a token of your kindness. It may almost be called a new book and I may well congratulate you on having been able to finish it, notwithstanding all the work you have on your hands. I read with great pleasure the preface and the first three chapters (hoping to go on farther) and I am sure many others will do the same. Thanks to the clearness and liveliness with which it is written, your book will certainly find many readers and be of great use. I heartily hope you and your family may have been in good health since I last saw you, which seems a long time ago already. Very probably I shall come once more to America in the beginning or the autumn of next year. It will give me great pleasure if then I may have the opportunity to meet you again...I suppose that after all the plan of publishing a translation of my lectures will have had to be given up. It is of no consequence, but I should regret the trouble you have taken without a result." Silberstein notes the dates of receipt and reply at the top. In fine condition.
Silberstein helped make special relativity and general relativity staples of university coursework: the first edition of his textbook, The Theory of Relativity, was published by Macmillan in 1914; a second edition, revised and expanded to include general relativity, was released in 1924.
From the collection of physicist Ludwik Siberstein.
