What is so strange about PBS screwing up history? Try the history channel. They are even worse. The search for the Holy Grail is a very good example. Jesus held the "Last Supper" in a rented room using the dishes of the host.The History Channel spent more than an hour giving all kind of theories and never mentioning the true picture. Americans want entertainment not truth!

Thanks so much for this bit of info on Mrs Einstein. I have occasionally be confronted by people who insist that Einstein stole relativity from his wife and they referred vaguely to "some program" they had seen or "some book" they had read. Invariably, I get accused of being a chauvenist, because "I just can't possibly imagine a woman coming up with such an important idea." When I counter with, "That's not what I've said at all. I'm questioning whether this particular man stole this particular idea from this particular woman and I just want a little evidence, before I'm willing to believe he did." Of course my response is due to my intransigence and fundamental lack of integrity. If I encounter this again, I'll just tell 'em to start with Cosmic Log and follow the chain from there.

That sounds silly anyway considering he contributed to physics his entire life and his wife situation wasn't static over his entire life and considering the math for special relativity wasn't invented by Einstein, it was brought into being by Lorentz. Sounds like a load of revisionist history to me.

Re Jeremy's comment that "the math for special relativity wasn't invented by Einstein, it was brought into being by Lorentz," this is not the right context for the discussion of priorities (which requires greater expertise in the scientific subject matter than I possess). However the issue here is not, per se, the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction formula, which certainly predated Einstein's 1905 paper. The same formula was derived by Einstein on the basis of his special relativity principle, and Troemel-Ploetz claims that Mileva Maric did the math that led to the formula. As I understand it, whereas both Fitzgerald and Lorentz incorporated the concept of the ether in (independently) developing the contraction formula, Einstein's argument eliminated this concept. For a relatively straightforward discussion of all this, see John Stachel's editorial introduction to the 1905 special relativity paper in "Einstein's Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics" (2005), Princeton University Press, pp. 101-121.

This story by PBS is simply another attempt by women to write a revisionist history to benefit themselves. It is good to see it thrown back in their faces once in a while.

Albert Einstein's "Theory of Relativity", by definition, had to include his wife. How else could he conclude that "time goes slower when you are with your relatives"!

It is possible that, because of the quantity of work in some areas of his research, Einstein needed an assistant and turned to his wife for help, at least on minor details, if she was not mathematically inclined.

Allen Esterson proposes that the way Einstein alludes to "our work" and "our theory of relative motion" in one letter and then subsequently refers to "I" and "my" in following letters as supportive of Einstein's independent thinking. It is a good thing Esterson is collecting additional historical documentation to support his position. Throughout my marriage I always referred to "our house" and "our daughter" while my husband said "my house" and "my daughter." I do not offer this as supportive of either position, only to say that subjective perspectives are only that.

@Allen Esterson, The point is, Einstein's gift(s) to us with relativity was not the math, it was the physical concept(s). His postulates that make SR are what make the difference between using Lorentz' math to deal with a universe with ether, or to calculate time/length contraction at significant fractions of c. Just so everyone sees them, these are not math, and they are what SR is based on: 1) The laws of physics are the same everywhere. 2) The speed of light is the same in all inertial reference frames. My point was that it sounds silly(even purposed) to come out with the idea that Einstein's wife was somehow the background creator of his intellectual work because she was better at math when his contributions to the land of physics had little to do with the math he gave us, and almost everything to do with the perspective he gave us.

I postulate (from my own intense parallel experience) that Mileva Maric's contribution to Einstein's special theory of relativity was one not of mathematics, but of her acting as an excellent exploratory and interactive sounding board involving mutual thought-experiments in space-time. The couples intense new love relationship and common interest in physics provided a unique and wondrous environment of unifying and profound mind-opening mental synergy that no one mind working alone would have. Such rare moments of intense love with two scientific minds interactively flowing together, the individuals will experience as if time was standing still and an oneness with unique physical phenomena for observation.

"This story by PBS is simply another attempt by women to write a revisionist history to benefit themselves. It is good to see it thrown back in their faces once in a while." A few women, not all women. Plenty of women prefer the truth to feel-good pseudohistory.

Wasn't there some document somewhere that listed both their names, but Mileva's name eventually disappeared? After all, she's got the same genes as Nikola Tesla who was also denied his genius and fame.

To Robin in Fargo, ND: What about all the women in the world before and during that era who were and still are unrecognized for their contributions to their fields? Mary Whiton Calkins was the first president of the American Psychological Association, and yet Harvard University refused to grant her the doctor of philosophy degree she earned (and still refuses to grant the degree post mortem). A great deal of "revisionist" history only revises the history of white men of privilege to recognize less-privileged groups who worked just as hard and contributed just as much and were ignorted for their efforts.

I think it is quite normal for a husband to talk to his wife about his work and for a wife to talk to her husband about her work. If they each have knowledge and expertise in the other's area, then I would think that it would be very normal for each to talk about it with the other and for each to contribute to the work. I do not think that is unusual at all. But, in years gone by women did not usually get the credit for it. (For instance, Erik Ericson, one of the great fathers of psychology, worked on his stages of development with his wife Joan. But it was published just under his name.) Now it is more the norm for women to get more equal credit for it.

Someone above has mentioned the Last Supper; others above have mentioned the battle between male and female intelligence in relation to societal acceptance of same. It's amazing to me that so much emotion is being applied to simple physics, when emotion has nothing to do with the relativity of an object in regard to any other. It seems to me that we humans have an inane compulsion to invent things, attitudes or beliefs which have no relativity to things of value, which are charity, forgiveness and love.

Kitty: Leaving aside the other historical documentation to which you, with fairness, allude, it is also a question of the actual wording (and the *dates* – Einstein only alighted on the special relativity principle in 1905).

For instance, typically when Einstein wrote in his letters to Maric up to 1901 on his ideas on relative motion he was specific when it came to authorship: "I'm busily at work on an electrodynamics of moving bodies" (Dec '01); "I spent all afternoon at [Prof] Kleiner's in Zurich telling him about my ideas about the electrodynamics of moving bodies" (Dec '01).

Allen Amaro: On your postulate that Maric acted as an exploratory and interactive sounding board involving mutual thought-experiments, it is certainly the case that *when they were students* Einstein sounded out his ideas with her. But the evidence points to Michele Besso (also Maurice Solovine) playing that role after that.

Einstein's significant discussions with Besso immediately before Einstein came up with the special relativity principle in 1905 are on record, but no one is suggesting *he* should have any credit, let alone co-authorship. See Stachel's comments on this here:

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/
articleprint.php?num=201  

All the indications are that the intensity of Maric's interest in physics declined after her two diploma failures, the tragic loss of baby Lisserl in 1902, and also with the birth of Hans Albert in 1903.

Millie Nikola writes: "Wasn't there some document somewhere that listed both their names, but Mileva's name eventually disappeared?" I fear this is an example how a false claim may circulate. See, e.g., Alberto Martinez's "Handling Evidence in History":

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/
articleprint.php?num=183

Napoleon said. "History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." There is no version of history that hasn't been revised over the years, mostly due to politics. Witha smidgen of facts, anyone can make a theory. Which is what science is all about. Just read the projects of the current list of 12 women scientists. Since we were not there, we do not know the exact sequence of events or the precise amount of information shared. Also, a grade or aptitude in school in not an indication of intelligence and a good example of this is Thomas Edison.

No one knows but those who were there! NONE OF US know exactly what was contributed to his work. It has been documented and attributed more than once that Mileva did work with Albert on his theories. The only question is to what degree. We will never know. End of debate.

Depending on your interest on the topic, there is a book "Einstein, A Life" that documents, via study of historical records, this time in Einstein's life very well. Einstein had MANY individuals with whom he conferred during development of SR. While the book tends to be "Einstein-friendly," it provides what is likely a good framework for forming judgement regarding Mileva Maric's contributions. I think you may determine that others contributed via feedback and providing the _right_questions_ to Einstein for him to progress his thoughts. Einstein was the captain of the ship, but he had a couple navigators.

Emma was the one....period. E=for Emma MC married cousin. she was the one who came up with the final solution, he divorced her and married his cousin. couldn't live with her because she was the smarter of the two. It's documented

I believe the credit for SR should go higher than to Albert and/or his wife, Mileva and other human contributors. Even their ability to "research & discover" is only a small part of the "equation". Shouldn't we as humans be concerned more about how research is used than giving credited?

So how many dramatic new innovative ideas did Einstein come up with while married to his second (non-scientist) wife? I believe the answer to that question tells us what role his first wife played in his creativity. As a member of a life-long husband-wife scientific team, I can say that it is impossible to tell where one person's thoughts and creativity begin and the other's begin and end. It seems clear to me from Einstein's correspondence that his wife played a major intellectual role in at least some of his creativity and accomplishments. To say otherwise is in conflict with everything I've experienced and know about such collaborations. Those who have not been part of such a peer relationship are simply not qualified to comment, in my opinion.

To DW: CSI shows are "all-the-rage" right now. People are hunger for topics to throw their deep analytical skills at. This topic is just one of many that are very interesting to them. No, the debate is not dead.

"We will never know. End of debate." No, not end of debate. Can't be end of debate, unless we just decide to shrug our shoulders and give up on evidence-based history altogether. Let's not do that - especially since people with sinister motivations are unlikely to give up on faked-up history. It's easy to say "nobody knows" and leave it at that; the fact remains that when there is evidence to consider, that evidence should be considered. There is *evidence* for the origin of this myth about Maric; it's no good just brushing it off with truisms about who wasn't there. And faked-up history doesn't do anyone any good. I'm a feminist, and I hate faked-up history of this kind partly because it helps to discredit *genuine* recovered history of women. It's also not a favor to Maric: as Allen Esterson points out, she was genuinely interesting and admirable in reality; the myth just obscures that.

Neil Blumenberg writes: "So how many dramatic new innovative ideas did Einstein come up with while married to his second (non-scientist) wife?" One response to this is to ask just how many truly innovative ideas is one man supposed to come up with? It is a fact that the most groundbreaking work of physical scientists frequently occurs in relatively early adulthood. This is so well-known that in 1906, when Einstein was 27, he wrote to his friend Maurice Solovine in relation to his ongoing scientific work, "Soon I will reach the age of stagnation and sterility when one laments over the revolutionary spirit of the young." His emotional relationship with Mileva had effectively broken down in 1912, and in 1914 they separated. In the period 1912 to 1915 and beyond he achieved what is widely regarded among physicists as the greatest achievement in physics since Newton, the culmination of his general theory of relativity. Thereafter, as he moved into his forties, he continued to make first rank contributions to quantum and statistical physics through into the 1920s. Neil writes that from Einstein's correspondence it is clear to him that Mileva played a major intellectual role in at least some of Einstein's creativity and achievements. Since letters of any possible relevance in this regard ceased in 1901, more than three years before Einstein produced his seminal 1905 papers, how can these letters (of which in any case only Einstein's contained any extra-curricular ideas on physics) provide the information he suggests? (And not a single letter that Maric wrote to her close friend Helene Kaufler over these years gives the slightest indication that she was working on ideas in physics.)

Neil Blumberg MD, Rochester, NY you're on point. I’m a programmer my wife has a different skill set, yet still ‘contributes’ occasionally to my work. But guess what? She gets NO love in my code comments. Without her I'd probably still be stuck on some Y2K bug fix. (This anecdote is on a much smaller scale I know). Only the two of them know how much was contributed by each. While, not documented and not validated, this scenario, or portions thereof, is (IMHO) entirely plausible.

Here is partial support of my postulate put forth above; Allen Amaro SF-BayArea (Sent Sunday, November 05, 2006 5:58 PM) "There are several credible scientists who believe Mileva may have collaborated on at least some of the 1905 papers. Among her supporters is Abram Joffe (Ioffe), a respected member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. From 1902 to 1906, Joffe was working in Munich as an assistant to W. C. Röentgen. Since Röentgen was a member of the Annalen der Physik editorial board, Joffe could easily have seen the original manuscripts of the 1905 papers. There is at least one printed report in which Joffe declared that he personally saw the names of two authors on the 1905 papers: Einstein and Marity (a Hungarianized form of Maric)". You can see the reference at a page from PBS:

http://www.pbs.org/opb/
einsteinswife/science/mquest.htm  

Allen Amaro: Alan Boyle (above) linked to an article of mine that documented more than a score of factual errors, including the claim you cite, on the PBS website to which you link. See also a lengthy critique of the PBS website material at:

http://www.esterson.org/einsteinwife2.htm

... where you will see a more detailed rebuttal of the very paragraph that you quote. Most blatantly erroneous is the assertion that "Joffe declared he personally saw the names of two authors on the 1905 papers: Einstein and Marity," an instance (as I wrote above in regard to this very claim) of how a false assertion may gain wide currency. I repeat again the link to Martinez's article also containing a refutation of the claim in question:

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=183

A meticulously comprehensive refutation of the claims in the quoted paragraph (which is based on passage in the deeply-flawed biography of Mileva Maric by Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric and uncritically recycled in a 1990 article by Santa Troemel-Ploetz) can be found in John Stachel's editorial Introduction to the 2005 edition of *Einstein’s Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics*, pp. liv-lxiii.

Information provided is coreect but incomplete, and all conclusions are based on it. Yes she failed on final exam but Einsten failed too. Reading your comments drives conclusion that Mileva was incomentent in Mathematical field. The true was quite opposite, she was excelent in math, she earns the highest marks in math and physics. One of the first women accepted at that time to attent T. Institute. If this is not true, she will never be accepted on leading Technical Instigute at Gratz. Unfortunately, she fully supported Einstein in his demand to help him on his work and that was the main reason for her later academic failure. Einstein later remeries never showing any interest for childer he have with her. It was known that Einstein was bad in mathematic and he needed help. Mileva who was analitic and bookish with her physical disability was perfect candidate for cheap labor.That is a side on story you will never uncover!

"Yes she failed on final exam but Einsten failed too. " The article explicitly said that no other student got less than 11. "It was known that Einstein was bad in mathematic and he needed help. " Completely unsubstantiated urban legend.

Gordon Smith writes:
>Yes she failed on final exam but Einstein failed too.<

Einstein was awarded the Zurich Polytechnic teaching Diploma on 27 July 1900. (Collected Papers, Vol. 1, document 67)

>The true was quite opposite, she was excelent in math, she earns the highest marks in math and physics.<

Maric achieved excellent grades in her matriculation exam from high school. However for the Zurich Polytechnic intermediate Diploma exam her total of math grades was the lowest of the five candidates. In the math component of the final Diploma exam in 1900 she obtained grade 5 on a scale 1-12. None of the other candidates in her group obtained less than grade 11. (Collected Papers, Vol. 1, docs. 42 and 67; Highfield and Carter, 1993, p. 50.)

>Unfortunately, she fully supported Einstein in his demand to help him on his work and that was the main reason for her later academic failure.<

There is no evidence that Einstein "demanded" that Maric help him with his work, nor that this was a factor in her exam failure. Einstein encouraged Maric in her studies. (Letters, Renn & Schulmann, 1992, pp. 13, 32, 38.)

>Mileva Maric was one of the first women accepted at that time to attent T. Institute.<

Given the difficulties in her path, Maric did superbly well to get accepted at the prestigious Zurich Polytechnic, for which she deserves great credit. However, the Polytechnic was advanced for its time, and in the last quarter of the nineteenth century many women were educated there. Before Maric joined the Polytechnic about one-sixth of the students in the section training to be teachers of math and science were female. (There were eight females in that section in Maric's year.) (J. Stachel, 2002, p. 30)

>It was known that Einstein was bad in mathematic and he needed help.<

Einstein was precociously gifted at math, and when he left high school in Munich to join his parents in Italy when he was 15 his math teacher gave him a letter stating that he had already reached matriculation level (normally achieved at age 18). For documentation, see:

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=218

> Einstein later remeries never showing any interest for childer he have with her.<

A.P. reported in July that the batch of letters recently released for publication by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "shows Einstein to have been more involved with and warmer to his first family than previously thought".

With all due respect, it would save repetition of citations if people would read the closely documented articles linked above before repeating the grossly misleading stories about Einstein and Maric that are circulating widely.

I like Albert Einstein's work and I like to know more abour him.

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