Mileva Einstein-Marić

Abstract

At the ETH in Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, it is common knowledge that Einstein said about the mathematical side of his work: “My wife solves all my mathematical problems.” There is no hint of that in the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 1 (Princeton University Press, 1987) which covers the time to 1902. We can be fairly certain that there won't be a hint in the second volume, which will cover the most crucial time of Mileva Einstein-Marić's cooperation with her husband, the time of “his creative outburst,” when the papers were written for which he would win the Nobel Prize.

I want to take a close look at the only existing biography of Mileva Einstein-Marić, written by a Yugoslav mathematician and physicist, which appeared in German translation in 1983. I want to show some of the mechanisms at work in the lives of the two people who met as students at the ETH, studied and worked together, got married, had children, and then followed each their own life path: The man became famous and is numbered among the great; the woman became invisible , unknown, and unheard of. The man achieved; the woman worked to support herself and their children. We see in the two life stories the familiar patterns that lead to the construction of success for men and the deconstruction of success for women. It is not surprising that the editors of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein have nothing more to say about Mileva Einstein-Marić than: “Her personal and intellectual relationships (sic!) with the young Einstein played an important role in his development.”

I also want to show, to the extent to which it is possible from the biography of Mileva Einstein-Marić and from the correspondence in the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 1, what is the scientific contribution of Einstein-Marić to her husband's work.

If it were not for the cultural imperialism of the U.S. academic establishment, it might be known in Princeton what is known in Novi Sad — Einstein-Marić was the scientific collaborator of her husband.