Mileva Marić (December 19, 1875 – August 4, 1948; Serbian Cyrillic: Милева Марић) was a Serbian inventor, scientist and also Albert Einstein's first wife (1903-1919), and mother of three children with him. She was Einstein's companion, colleague, and confidante. There are some claims that she may have contributed to Einstein's early research but the exact degree of her participation in his discoveries is uncertain and is the subject of many polemics.

*December 19, 1875 Marić is born into a wealthy family in Titel, in the province of Vojvodina (then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, today in Serbia). She is to become the oldest of three children. Shortly after her birth, her father ends his military career and takes a job at the court in Ruma and later in Zagreb (at the time also known by its German name, Agram).

*1886/87 High school for girls in Novi Sad.

*1888 Changed to a high-school in Sremska Mitrovica. This school was equipped with excellent laboratories for physics and chemistry. (Trbuhovic-Gjuric 1983)

*1890 Graduation. Mileva Marić's best grades were in mathematics and physics. From 1890 on she attended the Royal Serbian Grammar School in Sabac. Marić was accepted as a private student at the royal school in Zagreb. She received a special permission to participate in the physics class, usually only held for boys. (Trbuhovic-Gjuric 1983; Krstic 1991)

*Summer 1896 Marić studies medicine for one semester at the University of Zurich.

*Winter 1896 Marić starts studies in mathemathics and physics in Switzerland at ETH Zurich. This was the only University in the area to accept women for the final exams. She is the fifth woman to study physics at ETH, the only one in her year. During practical physics lessons, she gets to know Albert Einstein.

*1897 Studies in Heidelberg, Germany (Theory of numbers, analytical mechanics, differential and integral calculus, elliptical functions, theory of heat, electrodynamics. (Trbuhovic-Gjuric, 4. Auflage 1984, p.49, and ETH-Archiv der wissenschaftlich-historischen Abteilung)

*1900 Mileva Marić fails Zurich Polytechnic teaching diploma examination, almost certainly because of her poor grade in mathematics. [The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 1, Ed. J. Stachel, 1987, p. 247]

*1901 Mileva Marić becomes pregnant by Albert Einstein; it remains a secret. http://www.politikforum.de/forum/archive/22/2002/11/3/22943

*1901 Mileva Marić leaves ETH without a certificate; she does not continue her Ph.D. http://www.politikforum.de/forum/archive/22/2002/11/3/22943

*1902 Birth of Lieserl in Serbia, daughter of Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein.

*1903 Marriage with Albert Einstein.

*May 14, 1904 Birth of son Hans Albert.

*1910 Birth of son Eduard Tete. http://www.politikforum.de/forum/archive/22/2002/11/3/22943

*1913/14 Mileva Marić remains in Zurich with her children, her husband leaves for a new job in Berlin.

*1919 Albert and Mileva are divorced. http://www.politikforum.de/forum/archive/22/2002/11/3/22943

*1921 Albert Einstein wins the Nobel Prize, gives Mileva Marić the money (the money was the condition of their divorce settlement). She spends it on medical care for her son Eduard who suffers from schizophrenia. http://www.politikforum.de/forum/archive/22/2002/11/3/22943

*August 4, 1948 Mileva Marić dies in Zurich.

The extent of Mileva's contribution to Einstein's Annus Mirabilis Papers is controversial. According to Evan Harris Walker, a physicist, the basic ideas for relativity came from Mileva http://philoscience.unibe.ch/lehre/winter99/einstein/Walker_Stachel.pdf. Senta Troemel-Ploetz, a German linguist, says that the ideas may have been Albert's, but Mileva did the mathematics. Neither of these claims are likely.http://www.esterson.org/milevamaric.htmhttp://www.esterson.org/Who_Did_Einsteins_Mathematics.htm On the other hand, John Stachel, keeper of Albert's letters, says that Mileva was little more than a sounding board. The case for Mileva as co-genius mostly depends on letters in which Albert referred to "our" theory and "our" work and on a divorce agreement in which Albert promised her his Nobel Prize money (see explanations below) . He gave to Mileva the money from the Nobel Prize he received but he did not publicly acknowledge any putative scientific involvement by her in his work. Mileva used the award money to support their sons. Based on newly released letters (sealed by Albert's stepdaughter Margot Einstein until 20 years after her death), Walter Isaacson (Time 168(3):50-55, July 17, 2006) reported that Mileva invested Albert's Nobel Prize money in three apartment buildings in Zurich.

The contention that the Soviet scientist Abraham Joffe claimed to have seen the original manuscripts of Einstein’s 1905 papers is not borne out by an examination of the passage in question, in which he clearly attributes them to a single author. Joffe identifies Einstein as Einstein-Marity, the name by which he presumed Einstein was officially known in Switzerland at that time. This is clearly a single name, not two separate names, and there is no justification for stating that Joffe claimed the articles were co-authored, as Martinez shows: John Stachel comprehensively refutes all the erroneous claims about Joffe in the editorial Introduction to Einstein’s Miraculous Year: Five Papers that Changed the Face of Physics (2005), pp. liv-lxxii.

There is not even one strong argument that supports the idea that Mileva had helped Einstein to develop his theories, and all of the evidence for this suggestion is weak. There are other Nobel winners, beside Einstein, who have shared their prize money with their ex-wife as a part of the divorce settlement and it is known that Mileva refused to sign the divorce papers until Einstein agreed to share with her the Nobel Prize money, along with other items of their common property. Mileva used this money to buy an apartment building and used the monthly rent to support herself and her children. Moreover, when Einstein's only living son was asked about his own mother's scientific contribution to the Theory of Special Relativity he couldn’t recall any. Additionally, Albert remained an extremely fruitful scientist for the rest of his life, producing many more works of great importance, long after divorcing Mileva. She, on the other hand, never published any significant work and was never mentioned, including by any of hers or Albert’s acquaintances, for having contributed any of her own original ideas to any of Einstein's work. Finally, Mileva herself never claimed that she took any important part in the scientific work attributed to Albert .http://philoscience.unibe.ch/lehre/winter99/einstein/Stachel1966.pdf

Einstein and Marić had two sons and a daughter; their daughter Lieserl, born before their marriage, is variously said to have been given up for adoption or to have died in childhood; her actual fate is unknown. Hans Albert Einstein, their older son, became a professor in hydraulic engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. The other son, Eduard Einstein, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized; most of the money Einstein had received upon being awarded the Nobel Prize went towards his care. Mileva cared for him until she died in 1948.

Both of their sons were baptized in Serbian orthodox church of Nikolajevska in Novi Sad.

There are three known sculptoral busts of Mileva Marić, and a few memory reliefs (mostly on houses where she lived). All of them are located in different towns in Vojvodina, Serbia. The newest of the busts, one in her high-school town, Sremska Mitrovica, was placed in December 2005. A high-school in Novi Sad is also named after her.

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*Maurer, Margarete: "Weil nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf...'DIE ELTERN' ODER 'DER VATER' DER RELATIVITÄTSTHEORIE? Zum Streit über den Anteil von Mileva Maric an der Entstehung der Relativitätstheorie". Published in: PCnews, Nr. 48, Jg. 11, Heft 3, Wien, Juni 1996, S. 20-27. Electronic Version of RLI-Homepage (im RLI-Web): August 2005

*Ronald W. Clark: Albert Einstein. Leben und Werk, Munich, (1981). English Original: Einstein, the Life and Times, 1973).

*Dord Krstic: "Mileva Einstein-Maric", in: Elizabeth Roboz Einstein: Hans Albert Einstein. Reminiscences of His Life and Our Life Together, Iowa Cita (Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research) 1991, S. 85-99.

*R.S. Shankland: "Conversations with Albert Einstein", in: American Journal of Physics, Vol. 31, 1963, S. 47-57.

*Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric: Mileva Einstein, Editions des Femmes (1991). ISBN 2721004077. *Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric: Im Schatten Albert Einsteins. Das tragische Leben der Mileva Einstein-Maric, Bern: Paul Haupt, (1983). ISBN 3258047006.

* Stachel, J. (2002). Einstein from 'B' to 'Z'. Boston: Bïrkhauser, pp. 26-38; 39-55.

* Stachel, J (ed.) (2005). Einstein's Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics. Princeton, pp. liv-lxxii.

* Stachel, J. et al (eds.) (1987): The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein: Volume 1. (With English commentary).

* Havas, P. (ed.) (1987): The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein: Volume 1 (English translation).

* Popovic, M. (ed.) (2003): In Albert's Shadow: The love Life and Letters of Mileva Maric.

* Martinez, A: "Handling Evidence in History: The Case of Einstein's Wife," in School Science Review (March 2005). http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=183

* Albert Einstein * Relativity priority dispute

* PBS's Einstein's wife: Mileva Marić - contains a highly dramatized account of Mileva's life. Unfortunately it contains a large number of factual errors: http://www.esterson.org/PBS_Theory_and_Practice_Einsteins_Wife.htm * Mileva Marić family picture (Tesla Society.com) * Picture of Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein with child (Tesla Society.com) * Burial Record for Mileva Marić Einstein at Findagrave.com