NPR

Einstein's Note On Happiness, Given To Bellboy In 1922, Fetches $1.6 Million

The physicist had just won the 1921 Nobel Prize when he scribbled his theory of happy living on a piece of hotel stationery and handed it to the courier at the Imperial Hotel Tokyo.
The owner of a Jerusalem auction house holds up a note on happiness written by Albert Einstein in 1922. The note, which Einstein gave to a courier in lieu of a tip, sold for $1.56 million on Tuesday to an anonymous buyer. / MENAHEM KAHANA / Getty Images

The year 1922 was a busy one for Albert Einstein: He completed his first paper on unified field theory, went to Paris to help normalize French-German relations and joined an intellectuals committee at the League of Nations.

Shortly before heading to Asia for a lecture tour, he learned that he the . But rather

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