Signed Photo of Einstein Auctions for Nearly $75,000

I suppose nearly everyone has seen the famous image of physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) sticking out his tongue.  

As this CNN story explains, photographer Arthur Sasse took it in 1951.  Einstein later had nine copies made, and presented one to broadcast journalist Howard K. Smith.

The photo was taken following the celebration of Einstein’s 72nd birthday.  Some think that Einstein’s gesture was an obscure political commentary on McCarthyism and the Communist witch hunts of that era.  

Last Friday, a New Hampshire auction house sold Smith’s copy to a New York autograph specialist named David Waxman.  Waxman’s winning bid of $74,324 makes this the highest sum ever paid for an Einstein photograph.

Greensboro Public Library of course has lots of books on Einstein and his theory of relativity.  Try some of these recent titles:  Einstein’s Mistakes:  The Human Failings of Genius by Hans C. Ohanian; Einstein and Oppenheimer:  The Meaning of Genius by Silvan S. Schweber; Albert Einstein:  A Biography by Milton Meltzer (juvenile); Einstein:  His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson; A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion:  The Essential Scientific Writings of Albert Einstein edited, with commentary, by Stephen Hawking; Einstein:  A Biography by Jürgen Neffe; A World Without Time:  The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein by Palle Yourgrau; Albert Einstein by Aaron Frisch (juvenile); Anticipations of Einstein in the General Theory of Relativity by Christopher Jon Bjerknes; The Black Hole War:  My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind; Reinventing Gravity:  A Physicist Goes Beyond Einstein by John W. Moffat; My Einstein:  Essays by Twenty-four of the World’s Leading Thinkers on the Man, His Work, and His Legacy, edited by John Brockman; Empire of the Stars:  Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes by Arthur I. Miller; and Big Bang:  The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh.