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Science history lovers, check your bank accounts.
Today was the virtual bidding on a treasure trove of scientific historical treasures from the Microsoft mogul's estate Paul Allen started. Some of the most valuable pieces will be auctioned live in New York City next month, including physicist Albert Einstein's 1939 letter to then-US President Franklin D. Roosevelt pointing out that the Germans had discovered fissile uranium; a spacesuit that was part of NASA's Gemini IV mission, the first time an astronaut 'walked' in space; and correspondence from pioneer primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Louis Leakey.
Allen collected the items - which scientists and museum curators alike are excited about - over the course of his life. At the time of his death in 2018, Allen's net worth was estimated at more than $20 billion, the result of his developing software for the first personal computers and co-founding Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975. After leaving Microsoft, Allen ventured into various ventures, including founding the Allen Institutes for Brain Research, Artificial Intelligence and Cell Research, and financing fromSpaceShipOne– which in 2004 became the first private ship to take people into space.
"It's a testament to Paul Allen that he put this [collection] together," says Randall Berry, a computer engineer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. “You could see that he was really trying to capture something that he had partly experienced himself for posterity.”
Naturespoke to researchers and curators about the objects they are excited about and their hopes for what will happen to them after the auction.
Four-rotor Enigma cipher machine
This 1941 machine was central to the “beginning of the computer age,” says Voula Saridakis, curator of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. During World War II, the Nazis used Enigma machines to encrypt top secret military plans. British mathematician Alan Turing and other code breakers developed a system to crack the ciphers using mathematics and logic. This work was crucial to the development of Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer, which could decrypt a different type of encrypted messages and solve more than 100 codes per week for the Allies. “This problem, which no human intelligence could solve alone, required the development of computers,” says Sam Lemley, curator of the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home of a collection on the history of computer technology.
Correspondence from Louis Leakey, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey
These iconic figures in primatology brought human evolution into the spotlight in the 1970s and 1980s. With support from the Wilkie Brothers Foundation in Illinois, Leakey sent Goodall and Fossey to study wild chimpanzees and gorillas in the African wilderness. They shared their research with the Wilkie family through letters and photographs and sent the family tools that chimpanzees used to extract ants from anthills that Goodall had collected. “The things that chimpanzees did that we thought were exclusively human behavior turned out to be behaviors that we share with our closest relatives,” says Karen Strier, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “It made people feel like they were a part of nature.”
Astronaut Ed White's spare spacesuit
Even though White didn't float in space in this particular suit in 1965, Pablo de León, head of the Human Spaceflight Laboratory at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks, says it will likely sell for more than the listed high bid of $120,000 because the suit White actually wore was damaged. “UV light degraded the bladder of the spacesuit,” he says, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, which owns the suit, removed it from display and treated it to prevent further damage. The replacement suit should be in excellent condition.
Apple I personal computer
The Apple I was the first fully assembled, commercially available personal computer. This particular 1976 model was in the office of Steve Jobs, who co-founded the technology company Apple. Before this device came onto the market, hobbyists purchased kits and parts to build their own computers. Only about 200 Apple I computers were made, and many of them were returned when the company released the Apple II in 1977, offering discounts and trade-ins to entice customers to upgrade. Lemley believes this computer will likely receive the most competitive bid at the auction, "not because it's necessarily the most interesting or important item in the sale, but because Apple has just really captured the imagination of a lot of people."
Astronaut James Lovell's handwritten logbook fromApollo 8
The NASA missionApollo 8was the first manned mission to fly around the moon. The 1968 mission was not only important in preparing for the historic one historic landing of Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon, but also for “seeing the far side of the moon with human eyes for the first time and seeing Earth as a planet for the first time,” says Saridakis. As the mission's command module orbited the moon, astronaut William Anders photographed the iconic photo 'Earthrise', and Lovell, who piloted the module, made navigation records in this logbook.
Find a home
Many of these objects will probably initially end up in the hands of private collectors. Museum curators who work withNaturespokespeople say most of the artifacts in their collections - about 80% - were donated. Of the remainder, some have been purchased and some come from private collectors who loan them out. Saridakis says it's unusual for the Griffin Museum of Science and Technology to bid on such "large, large-scale collection auctions." Instead, private collectors bid on expensive items that they may donate to museums.
One concern among scholars about historical artifacts falling into private hands is that the objects may not be properly cared for, Saridakis says. Her message to collectors is to “do your homework” and consult professional conservators to ensure items are stored or displayed properly to “preserve them for hundreds of years, if not longer.”
Lemley says museums are more likely to preserve rare texts and archaeological remains than modern objects like mainframe computers. That's because modern artifacts are "very bulky objects that need to be curated, stored and preserved," he adds, noting that they are made from a variety of materials such as plastic, silicon, lithium and cadmium, for which there are not as many precedents for preservation. “How do you store these things that were never actually built to last more than a decade?” Lemley asks.
Whether Allen's prized possessions end up in private or museum collections, it's important to Strier and Berry that the items are protected and that interested parties know where they are. “It would be a shame if these things were just hidden somewhere where no one could see them,” says Berry.
The auction will be held in three parts; the first two are virtual, starting today and ending September 12th. The third part will take place live on September 10th at Christie’s auction house in New York City.