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TLS signed “A. Einstein,” one page, 8.5 x 11, blindstamped personal Princeton letterhead, January 5, 1954. Letter to Margaret Sanders Adams, the daughter of KFC founder Col. Harland Sanders, replying to a five-page letter in which she prompts him with a litany of philosophical questions and ideas about science, religion, peace, and universal brotherhood; she makes mention of her work in sculpture and notes that Otto Nathan saw her "reading [Einstein's] books at the Library of Congress and made himself known to me. He has been so kind as to offer to bring my letter in person."
The essential question she poses to Einstein is thus: "You said that your Unified Field Theory would enable mankind to explain the multiferous phenomena of nature in terms of a single edifice of cosmic law. Is not this a mathematical structure that the religieux calls by the name 'GOD'? The scientist builds it through mathematics to prove the absolute. The religieux accepts it on faith and starts from there."
Einstein replies, in full: "I feel somewhat unhappy reading your kind letter of December 17th. Through no fault of mine (I hope) I have become in the minds of some people a legendary figure, something like Santa Claus, who has accomplished more or less impossible things and is able to perform more of them. The sober truth is quite different.
Concerning my last theory which took me many years to bring into conviction: I have to say the following: it is a system of equations, simple from the logical point of view, established in the hope that it may be the general field law. But due to mathematical difficulties which seem, for the time being, insurmountable, I have not the slightest guilt to assert that this system will fulfill this expectation. Nor will this probably be known in a possible future, I regret, therefore, very strongly the fact that the press, always hungry for news made a big noise about it. Most of the physicists of today do not believe that my way is hopeful or even reasonable.
All this being so, as I have truly said it, any attempt of mine to teach the people what they should believe or do, would be out of place, even ridiculous. The truth is that I feel not so absolutely sure that I know the right answers to those all-important questions. The only thing I feel sure of is that the actions and even the judgements of men are more determined by their wishes and instincts than by rational thought—a fact to which we have to bow in resignation." In fine condition.
Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, a copy of Adams's original letter to Einstein, a copy of her proposed reply, and two ALSs by Otto Nathan concerning their correspondence. In the first, dated January 11, 1954, he writes: "I thought Professor E's letter to you was very interesting and very characteristic of him and his way of thinking. And while it is not exactly what you desired, it is an answer to the question which you had asked." In the second, dated April 25, 1954, he mentions visiting Einstein and recommends that she not send a new letter: "I talked with him at length about his works and the present stage of his deliberations. I have become quite convinced in my own mind to suggest to you not to mail your new letter for the time being. I am sure he would add nothing to his previous letter to you (of January 5, 54)."
Also includes a copy of Margaret Sanders Adams's memoir, The Colonel's Secret: Eleven Herbs and a Spicy Daughter, in which she relates the conception, creation, and delivery (by Otto Nathan) of her letter to Einstein. She notes: "From the very beginning I had only dared to hope to someday have what I wrote published as an 'open letter' to Dr. Einstein, but far beyond all imaginable expectations, here before me stood Einstein's personal friend, willing to act as my courier, to take him a personal letter from me! I spent that night putting my hypothesis into a personal letter. Dr. Nathan delivered it and in a short time, I had an answer in the mail from Einstein himself. I have kept the two letters in my lock box since 1953 for safe keeping, and they shall remain there until I am shown the propitious time to publish them."
Sanders documents her longstanding interest in Albert Einstein, her creation of Einstein's bust, her friendship with Otto Nathan, and his delivery of her 'open letter' to Einstein in her memoir, The Colonel's Secret: Eleven Herbs and a Spicy Daughter (pp. 186-239), published in 1996.
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