Very special relativity

It's been 51 years since his death, but Albert Einstein still makes for good gossip fodder. Yesterday, there were new revelations from his personal correspondence: He discussed his many affairs with his second wife and stepdaughter, was "fed up" with his own theory of relativity, and lost most of his Nobel money -- which should have gone for child support -- in the Great Depression. The Boston Globe has the best rundown:

Before he and Mileva married, they had a daughter, Lieserl, who was given up for adoption. In 1919, Einstein divorced Mileva and married Elsa, but within four years he was in love with Bette Neumann, his secretary who was also the young niece of one of his friends. ... Einstein's distance from his two sons after the divorce from Mileva clearly troubled him. He wrote how much he enjoyed taking the boys on holiday but at times expressed despair over his younger son, Eduard, who suffered from schizophrenia. ... The divorce settlement with Mileva contained a unique clause in which Einstein agreed that if he were to win the Nobel Prize he would deposit the money in a Swiss bank account in Mileva's name, and she could use the interest to finance the upbringing of the children. Einstein indeed won the prize for physics in 1921, but failed to fulfill this promise. ... He invested three-quarters of the money, about $24,000, in long-term bonds via the Ladenburg and Thalmann Bank in New York. Mileva was supposed to receive the interest. But the value of the bonds was wiped out in the Depression of the 1930s and Mileva's income dried up.

Hey, nobody's perfect; I still love the guy (though perhaps given his way with the ladies that's no surprise?).