 Her name was Mileva Maric,
and she was born in 1875 near Zagreb, in what is now Croatia. She
was born with a birth defect that was common in her region, and it
caused her to walk with a limp all her life.
Mileva was a successful, self-made woman who gave up a promising
career to help her husband pursue his career. She was a few years
younger than Marie Curie, and the two would meet later in life. She
might have been on a par with Curie if she had pursued her own
career. Her story remains mostly unknown to this day, even to
historians.
When Mileva was 20, she began studying medicine at a university
in Zurich, one of the few universities at the time that admitted
women. This is where she met her future husband, who was three years
younger than she. We'll call him Al until his full name is revealed.
Al was a Jewish boy from Munich, Germany.
Both Mileva and Al failed their final exams at the university,
probably as a result of spending too much time together and not
enough time studying. (Parents, feel free to use this column to
lecture your kids on what will happen to them if they don't study.)
Al later received a diploma, but Mileva did not. When Al was the
only person in his class to not receive a teaching offer, he went to
work at the Swiss patent office. It was while working at the patent
office that he became a household name, albeit not for patenting any
of his inventions.
Al's parents disapproved of the relationship from the beginning.
For one reason, Mileva and Al were of different faiths. To make
matters worse, she became pregnant out of wedlock with his child.
Worse yet, her parents disapproved of the relationship, too.
After losing their daughter, Lieserl, to an early death, they had
two sons, Hans and Eduard. The couple had a breakthrough year in
1905 when Al had three of his scientific papers published. The third
paper was titled "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies."
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 Their marriage was turbulent at times, and they divorced in 1918
after 16 years of marriage. Al later married again, this time to his
cousin Elsa, only to have that marriage end in divorce, too.
Things didn't turn out any better for Mileva. In 1920 she moved
back home to help her ill parents, but she also had to care for her
sister who was suffering from psychological problems. Her sister
once burned a large sum of cash, literally, that was hidden in an
empty stove. (Again, parents, feel free to use this column to
lecture your kids on what can happen if they hide their cash in the
stove.)
As for Al's "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" paper
mentioned earlier, you probably know it by its other name…
"Einstein's Theory of Relativity." Albert went on to win the Nobel
Prize in physics in 1921.
You knew all along that it was Albert Einstein, didn't you?
Mileva spent the last years of her life caring for their son,
Eduard, who was suffering from schizophrenia. While Albert was not a
very good husband, he was an even worse father. He emigrated to
America in 1933 and never saw Eduard nor Mileva again, even though
Eduard lived another 32 years.
When Mileva died in 1948, her obituary made no mention of Albert.
A hidden collection of love letters that Albert and Mileva had
written to each other in their early years together was made public
in 1990, finally revealing the extent to which Mileva contributed to
Albert Einstein's success.
[Text from file received
from Paul Niemann]
Paul Niemann may be reached at
niemann7@aol.com.
Copyright Paul Niemann 2007
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columns)
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