When taking a break from scribbling out the theory of relativity, looks like Albert Einstein, the German-born theoretical physicist, spent time writing letters around topics including God, his son's geometry studies, and a toy an uncle gave him when he was a kid, New York Post reports.
Profiles in History, a California-based auction house, will put Einstein's letters, which include more than two dozen missives, up for sale on Thursday. The letters were in German and English and some done in longhand and others typewritten.
Amassed over decades by a private collector, the letters represent one of the largest caches of Einstein's personal writings ever offered for sale.
In one letter, Einstein was writing to his son urging him to be more serious about geometry. In another, he was being a friend, consoling a peer who recently discovered her husband's infidelity. And in another, during his 70th birthday, he flashed back on how a toy steam engine which was a gift from an uncle prompted his lifelong interest in science.
On the issue of God, he defended himself on the issue of him being an atheist:
"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one," he wrote to a man who corresponded with him on the subject twice in the 1940s. "You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist. ... I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."
"We all know about what he accomplished, how he changed the world with the theory of relativity. But these letters show the other side of the story. How he advised his children, how he believed in God," says Joseph Maddalena, founder of Profiles in History, in a foxnews.com report.
Maddalena is looking at raking anywhere from $5,000 to as much as $40,000, for a total take ranging from $500,000 to $1 million. In his opinion, to be able to get a glimpse of the other side of 20th century's most brilliant physicists is priceless.
"These are certainly among the most important things I've ever handled," Maddalena said. "This is not like a Babe Ruth autograph or a signed photo of Marilyn Monroe. These are historically significant."
