Albert Einstein Writes a Sweet Personal Letter to Inventor and Close Family Friend Peter Bucky, Approving of His Choice For a Wife

He also encloses a letter, likely relating to the patent matters in which both he, and Gustav and Peter Bucky, were involved.

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Gustav Bucky was a radiologist, physician and inventor, who during the course of his life took out 143 patents. He is famous for Grenz ray therapy, which allowed irradiation without affecting the deeper layers of the body, and the Bucky diaphragm, which is a diaphragm with a moving grid that radiologists use...

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Albert Einstein Writes a Sweet Personal Letter to Inventor and Close Family Friend Peter Bucky, Approving of His Choice For a Wife

He also encloses a letter, likely relating to the patent matters in which both he, and Gustav and Peter Bucky, were involved.

Gustav Bucky was a radiologist, physician and inventor, who during the course of his life took out 143 patents. He is famous for Grenz ray therapy, which allowed irradiation without affecting the deeper layers of the body, and the Bucky diaphragm, which is a diaphragm with a moving grid that radiologists use to avoid grid shadows on x-rays. He came to the United States from Germany in 1923, and after returning to Germany for a few years, came back to the U.S. permanently in 1933 when the Nazis took power. He son Peter, born in 1912, was also a noted radiologist and inventor holding a number of patents.

Einstein had known Bucky in Germany, and after he arrived in the U.S. in 1933, Bucky and Einstein became friends.  In 1934 Bucky proposed to Einstein that they construct an altimeter, and they worked on other projects together. They were co-inventors in one of Einstein’s few patents: the Light Intensity Self-Adjusting Camera. But the friendship was not merely scientific, it was social as well, and included their wives and children. The Buckys and Einsteins exchanged weekend visits, and spent summers together. In 1937, Peter Bucky drove cross-country with Hans Albert, Einstein’s son, looking at universities. Albert and Gustav: theirs was more than a passing friendship; many scholars consider Bucky Einstein’s closest personal friend.

Typed letter signed, on his blind embossed letterhead, in German, Princeton, April 13, 1943, to Peter Bucky. Since Einstein got to know Peter Bucky as a child, he continued to call him "Peter" rather than Herr Bucky. “Here is the desired letter. I would like to say on this occasion also that the girl you brought along made an especially good impression on me.” The letter to which he refers is not present. This letter is from the Peter A. Bucky Papers which were sold in 2000. It’s been a decade since any Bucky/Einstein letters has reached the public sale market.

In all likelihood the younger Bucky had visited Einstein to request papers relating to either one of his, his father’s, or Einstein’s patents, or a joint patent project they were considering doing with the Bendix Company. As for the girl Peter had wanted Einstein to meet in person, she was Bucky's girlfriend and later wife, Jeanne. In this sweet letter Einstein lets Peter know he approved of the choice. He refers to her as a girl because she was considerably younger than Bucky, and must have had a youthful appearance.

When Einstein was cremated, the only people present were his son Hans Albert, his secretary Helen Dukas, Princeton economist and friend Otto Nathan, and the Bucky family. Peter Bucky went on to write a book entitled The Private Albert Einstein, which is a primary resource for those who seek Einstein quotations or details of his personal life.

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