The relative importance of Mrs Einstein

WHILE developing the theory of special relativity in the years around 1905, Albert Einstein lived and worked with a fellow student who became his first wife. The late Mileva Einstein-Maric now has a small band of supporters who argue that she should get some—maybe most—of the credit for that work.

The Einsteins studied physics together at the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich. They got similar grades, though both were mediocre compared with other students in their class. In letters to his wife, the young Einstein often discussed the ideas and experiments that led him (or her, or both) to discover special relativity.

In New Orleans, Dr Evan Walker, a physicist who works at a cancer institute in Aberdeen, Maryland, presented letters hinting that Mileva did much more than listen to and advise her husband. Albert repeatedly referred to "our work'', "our investigation" and "our theory". In one letter he wrote, "How happy and proud I will be when the two of us together will have brought our work on the relative motion to a victorious conclusion!”

Dr Walker found another hint of Mileva's contributions in the memoirs of a Russian physicist, Abraham Joffe. Joffe referred to four important papers credited to Albert alone as being by "Einstein-Marits". Dr Walker argues that Joffe probably did see both names on the original manuscripts because he was unlikely have known this Hungarian variant of Maric. Unfortunately the original manuscripts have disappeared and Joffe is dead.

There are several interpretations of these and other smidgens of fact. Dr Senta Troemel-Ploetz, a linguist at the German Research Institute in Bonn, contends that Albert exploited the talent and labour of his wife, stole ideas from her, and expected her to do his mathematics after she had finished cooking and washing up the dishes.

Dr Troemel-Ploetz argues that Mrs Einstein was the brains in the family. Mileva would need exceptional talent and ambition to qualify for the exclusive Polytechnic school at a time when few women studied science. According to her, Mrs Einstein failed to win recognition because of the discrimination that discouraged women from scientific achievement. This, combined with Mileva's struggle to support herself and her children after Albert left her in 1914, thwarted her scientific career.

Dr John Stachel of Boston University, who recently edited a new collection of Einstein's letters, put the traditional point of view. He found no hard evidence of any creative contribution from Mileva. Few of her letters to Albert remain and none of them contains any original ideas on physics. He thinks Albert often referred to "Our work" simply because he was in love.

Mileva Maric was certainly capable of understanding her husband’s work and possibly of collaborating with him. Dr Walker thinks her knowledge and experience may have complemented his. Mileva may have provided knowledge of the Michelson-Morley experiment, which measured the speed of light in different directions and had profound implications for relativity. Einstein once said that he did not know about the experiment when he developed his theory; at other times he said he did.

With such meagre evidence in the present, it would probably take a trip back to the beginning of this century to unseat the traditional view of the Einsteins. Unfortunately, Albert’s general theory of relativity—finished a year after their separation—rules out such shortcuts.