Biografia
Mileva Marić was unknown to the scientific world and general history until the letters that she and Einstein exchanged during their courtship between 1897 and 1902 came to light in 1897. The 43 surviving letters between them often speak of "our works" and "our theory of relative motion", "our point of view" or "our articles". After reading this correspondence, it seems that Mileva played a very important role in her husband's work, which led to his winning the Nobel Prize.
Mileva was born in 1875 in present-day Serbia. Since she was a child, she stood out for her intelligence and her interest in music, physics and mathematics. Her father had to request for permissions to allow her to continue studying at the secondary level, reserved for the male sex and the main obstacle for women to access higher education. At the age of 15, she achieved the highest grades in physics and mathematics at the Zagreb High School, which was attended by only two women. In 1896 she passed the entrance exam at the University of Zurich, one of the most prestigious in Europe in the 19th century and which allowed access to women, and she enrolled at the Zurich Polytechnic School to study mathematics and physics, where she met Einstein. They both shared their love for science and music and it is said how they often left their regulated classes to dedicate themselves to their own researchers. Mileva and Einstein entered into a strong romantic relationship, which was not welcomed by Einstein's family.
A very relevant piece of information is that Mileva, in 1897 the second year of her studies at the Zurich Polytechnic School, spent a semester at the University of Heidelberg, where she had the opportunity to take classes with the eminent professor Philip Lenard, pioneer of quantum mechanics and researcher of the photoelectric effect, and who would obtain the Nobel Prize in Physics a few years later. Thanks to Lenard, she acquires knowledge that she shares with Einstein upon her return to Zurich, as he insisted to her to return. When she showed up, she did not arrive empty-handed, but rather with the most radical and novel ideas in physics.
By the end of their classes in 1900, Mileva and Albert had similar grades (4.7 and 4.6, respectively), except in Applied Physics, where she had a top score of 5, but he only had a 1. She excelled at experimental work, while he did not. However, in the oral exam, Professor Minkowski gave an 11 out of 12 to the four male students, but only a 5 to Mileva. Only Albert got his degree.
Mileva's intense and fruitful university life was cut short in 1901, when she became pregnant and was unable to take her final exams. Pressured by her teachers and her social circle, who considered it a shame to have a child out of wedlock, Mileva was forced to drop out of school and return to her parental home.
Mileva had an unsociable character and a very conspicuous limp, due to congenital arthritis, which caused her to have very low self-esteem despite her brilliant intelligence and high academic education. Albert and Mileva married in 1903 with the opposition of Einstein's family for being a foreigner and four years older than him. They moved to Bern. She worked at the Patent Office and she took care of the house, but she also studied and shared research with him. In 1904, Hans Albert, her second son, was born, and she looked after students whom she took in as guests to have a sufficient income.
The work of both of them in research was very intense and they turned their house into an open place where they studied and discussed with other scientists. Their house was a meeting place for select spirits, a group of people who had a great time together and celebrated their discoveries by working together, reading and discussing not only science but also philosophy. In 1905, Einstein's three major works were published: the special theory of relativity, the work on the photoelectric effect and the theory of Brownian motion, and few historians doubt Mileva's contribution to them. It seems unlikely that she, with her background and having done research in number theory, differential and integral calculus, elliptic functions, heat theory and electrodynamics, would have remained completely aloof from the research that culminated in the "annus mirabili" of 1905, the year in which Einstein published the four papers which were each a major scientific discovery (including the theory of relativity) and which would make him a genius forever.
In 1909 they return to Zurich, where Einstein has obtained a professorship at the University. While he is becoming more and more a world-renowned scientist, Mileva has her third child in 1910, who was born ill and required special care, which Mileva took over, apparently leading to an estrangement between the couple. Mileva ceases to be the exceptional woman with whom he was related as a friend and colleague, as a researcher with whom he shared his projects and who helped him in the preparation of classes and lectures. She moves with him and their children to Prague, where in 1911 she is offered a position at a university.
Albert distanced himself from his wife and children and began a parallel relationship with his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, which Marić discovered in 1912. When Albert realised that his infidelity was no longer a secret, he imposed a series of conditions on Mileva in order to remain "nominally married". Among other things, he demanded: "You will see to it that my clothes are tidy and that I am served three meals a day in my room", "my bedroom and study are always in order and that no one touches my desk", "you will renounce all personal relations with me, except where social appearances require it, and you will not expect any affection from me", "you must respond immediately when I speak to you", and a few others of a similar vein. Mileva rejected these conditions and left, together with her children, the joint house that had ceased to be a home.
Mileva returns alone with her children to Zurich, although she is reluctant to grant him a divorce when Einstein asks for it in 1916. Meanwhile, she lived in a boarding house with few resources until she started giving private music and math lessons and was able to rent an apartment and give her children a decent life. The divorce comes in 1919. They agree that if Einstein wins the Nobel Prize she will receive a share, which has also been underlined as an element that, if not proven, does strengthen the position of those who defend the thesis of the relevance of Mileva's collaboration in the publications of 1905.
Mileva will live in Zurich until her death taking care of her children. She spent money on medical care for her youngest son, Eduard, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia and suffers from violent outbursts that endanger Mileva's life. Despite this, she has kept him at home and avoided psychiatric institutions, although she sometimes has to hire a bodyguard to protect her from his outbursts. After a further psychotic break, she was hospitalised for a nervous breakdown, and died alone after several embolisms in 1948. Sadly, his son Eduard died in 1965 in a psychiatric institution, and his obituary reads "Eduard Einstein. Son of the deceased Professor Einstein", but not his mother's name.
Here are some of the facts and research that support the thesis that Mileva played an important role in Albert Einstein's scientific discoveries.
Among the 43 letters that Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein exchanged during their relationship, they often talk about "our works" and "our theory of relative motion", "our point of view" or "our articles".
Shortly before the papers for which Einstein was to receive the Nobel Prize were published in 1905 in the scientific journal "Annalen der Physik", Mileva sent a letter to her friend Helene Kaufler in which she said: "We have recently finished a very important paper which will make my husband world famous". These articles are devoted to atoms and molecules, "quantums" and the theory of relativity. There are numerous accounts of seeing them work together, including their son Hans Albert who remembers seeing them working together day and night at the kitchen table.
The American scientist Evan Harris has made a quantitative and qualitative study of Einstein's references to the studies and research he and Mileva were carrying out to the future success that they would share with their discoveries using terms such as "our work", "our theory", "our collaboration", "our research", "our articles" (Rubio Herraez, 68). (Rubio Herraez, 68). In March 1901 Einstein writes: "How happy and proud I shall be when together we have successfully completed our work on relative motion". Evan Harris states: "The special theory of Relativity begins with the thesis that Mileva wrote and submitted for supervision to Professor Weber, when he was a student at the Zurich Polytechnic, the memory of which has been lost. The photoelectric effect has its origin in Mileva's work when she was studying at Heildelberg with Professor Lenard, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics precisely for his experimental work on the photoelectric effect. The theory of Brownian motion is a product of Einstein's thinking and his interest in thermodynamics, but Mileva contributed to it with mathematical work, describing the disordered motion of molecules". (Quoted by Rubio Herráez, 72. Source: E. Harris, "Ms. Einstein" (A.A.A.S.) Annual Meeting, 1990. And "Mileva Maric's Relativistic Role", Physics Today, vol. 44, no. 2, 1991).
Other researchers, such as Senta Troemel-Ploetz and biographer Desanka Trbuhovic, claim that Mileva was the one who developed the mathematics of the new theories and approaches that made her husband famous. Einstein's biographer Peter Michelmore agrees with them, and he also claims that Mileva was an exceptional mathematician and that they both worked hard in Berne on the theory of Relativity.
Why didn't Mileva sign the articles written together with Einstein? There is evidence that when Conrad Habicht, Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić built and patented an ultrasensitive voltmeter under the name "Einstein-Habitch" in 1908, Habitch questioned Mileva's decision not to include her name. To this, she replied: “What for? We are both a stone. Biographers agree that Mileva Marić prioritized getting her scientific theories out there over being recognized for it. Given the prejudice against women at the time, a publication co-signed by a woman might have carried less weight, so some historians believe that Mileva herself decided to keep her name off the page.
Nowadays, many historians of science consider that, beyond the degree of collaboration that may have taken place between Marić and Einstein, it is essential to make the figure of Mileva Marić known and to vindicate, above all, her importance as a mathematician and physicist in the history of science.
If we do not take into account that science is a collective knowledge and that the social context denied the merits of women, to the point of making them renounce their signature in their contributions to the scientific advances in which they participated, history will never make them visible.
Extrated from:
Perdomo, Inma (2013). “Mileva Marić. A la sombra del genio” Filosofía, ciencia y género, Blogspot, 29-04-2022, <inmaculadaperdomo.blogspot.com/2013/11/mileva-maric-la-sombra-del-genio.html>
