Lot 1503

ROBERT A. MILLIKAN

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ROBERT A. MILLIKAN

Estimate: $300 - $400

Starting Bid: $140

(0 Bids)

by Alexander Historical Auctions LLC
July 31, 2026 10:00 AM EDT
Live Auction
106 East Main Street, Suite 103
Elkton, MD, US 21921

ROBERT A. MILLIKAN
(1868-1953) American physicist and 1926 Nobel Prize winner in Physics ‘for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect' (Nobel Prize Foundation). Fine content T.L.S. on his CalTech letterhead, 1p. 8vo., Pasadena, Mar. 17, 1948 to Prof. Philipp Frank at Harvard University. Millikan bemoans the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia. In part: '...It was extraordinarily thoughtful of you and Mrs. Frank to send your greetings on my eightieth birthday, especially when your minds, and everybody's minds, are so disturbed at this moment by the rape of Czechoslovakia. This must hit you very hard. I have just been listening to the President's special message to Congress, with which I agree to the fullest, and I think practically all thoughtful and informed men the world over will also agree...' Fine. PHILIPP FRANK (1884–1966) was an Austrian-American physicist and mathematician once recommended by Einstein to be his successor for a professorship in Germany. In 1938, he was invited by Harvard University to America as a visiting lecturer on quantum theory and the philosophy of modern physics. The Germans having invaded Czechoslovakia as he was about to begin his scheduled lecture tour, Frank, a Jew, never returned to his position at Prague and instead became a lecturer on physics and mathematics at Harvard from that year until his retirement in 1954.

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$100 $499 $20
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$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 + $10,000