A letter by the grandson of Albert Einstein says the famous physicist used to pick up cigarette butts off U.S. streets to smoke in his pipe. Bernhard Caesar Einstein said in the letter written in 1998 that his grandfather collected the cigarette butts to circumvent his doctor’s orders to stop smoking, reported the Sunday Telegraph. Einstein’s grandson recalled that, at age 8, he did not understand a word of a lengthy three-hour lecture from the physicist on the mathematical properties of soap bubbles. The lecture was delivered while the two were alone on the sea in a sailing boat when there was no wind. Einstein deliberately went out sailing when there was no wind because he felt it was more challenging, his grandson recalled. The recollections were to be used in a 1998 documentary on the German-born genius, but because of illness the letter from the grandson arrived too late. It was first published on the Web site of a Belgian newspaper, Le Soir, last week. © Copyright 2005 by United Press International

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