THE HAGUE, Aug 20: A handwritten account by German physics genius Albert Einstein of his last major theory has turned up in the Netherlands, the University of Leyden, near The Hague, said Saturday.

It was found among documents from the library of a former professor and friend of Einstein, Paul Ehrenfest, by a student, Rowdy Boeyink, in the course of his research.

The 16-page manuscript dated 1924 describes the behaviour of the atoms of a gas at very low temperatures, a process now known as Bose-Einstein condensation and only proved in 1995.

The paper bears the catchy title of “Quantentheorie des einatomigen idealen Gases — Zweite Abhandlung.”

“It’s an important text because it refers to the last significant discovery by Albert Einstein,” Carlo Beenakker, a researcher at the Lorentz scientific institute attached to the university, said.

He added that the manuscript would be kept at Leyden University where Einstein was an annual guest professor.

—AFP