Critique of the chapter on “Mileva Marić
Einstein” in Andrea Gabor’s
1995 book Einstein’s Wife: Work and
Marriage in the Lives of Five Great Twentieth-Century Women
Allen Esterson
Note that this article is not intended to be a conventional review. Instead, I shall first quote in bold type statements made by Andrea Gabor, which will be followed by my comments. Some of these items will be relatively unimportant, but they nevertheless serve to illustrate Gabor’s limited knowledge of the relevant literature and her poor grasp of the nature of genuine historical scholarship. (The first items refer to comments in Gabor’s Introduction.)
Marić… often interceded with
[their professors at
There is
no documented evidence of any such intercessions.
For years, the executors of the Einstein
estate have sought to suppress details of his personal life, including the love
letters exchanged with Marić… (p. xiii)
The love
letters were not in the hands of the Einstein estate. They were in the
possession of the family of Hans Albert Einstein, Einstein’s elder son.
Most of Einstein’s biographers similarly
dismiss [Marić’s]…role as a pioneer in physics.
(p. xiii)
There is
no documented evidence that Marić made any
contributions to physics.
Long after she had committed herself to
studying physics, for instance, Mileva maintained an
abiding interest in psychiatry, regaling Einstein with reports of the latest
studies in the field, such as the new experiments in hypnotism, just as he
showered her with news of the latest discoveries in physics. (p. 7)
Far from
“regaling Einstein with reports of the latest studies in the field” of
psychiatry, there is a single
relevant item in the letters Marić wrote to Einstein,
dating from November 1901. In one letter Marić merely reported
that she had read the book by Forel that Einstein had
sent her. (August Forel was director of the Burghölzli Clinic in
Legend has it that the couple met when Einstein asked Maric how she had arrived at
the solution to a particular problem – probably in mathematics – for which he
himself had not found the answer. (p. 7)
Gabor provides no
reference for this statement, and I must confess that in the course of a
massive amount of reading the literature on Einstein I cannot recall coming
across this dubious-sounding “legend”. (See below for evidence that Einstein
entered the Zurich Polytechnic in 1896 with an exceptional amount of knowledge
and ability for his age in both physics and mathematics.)
Einstein, who at seventeen was still
virtually a boy, must have been somewhat in awe of his unusual female
classmate, who was three and a half years his senior. (p. 7)
If Gabor had the knowledge of Einstein that should have been a
requisite for writing the chapter in question, she would know that from an
early age Einstein was remarkably self-assured and was not inclined to be in
awe of anyone, including his teachers at the Luitpold
Gymnasium in Munich which he left on his own accord at the age of fifteen.[2]
He would hardly have been in awe of one of his classmates, even if she was a
few years older than him.
Maric told Einstein early in
their relationship that she doubted she would ever marry, because although she
insisted that “a woman can make a career just like a man,” she apparently also
believed the two enterprises to be mutually exclusive. (p. 7)
Gabor references the
biography of Marić by the Serbian author Desanka Trbuhović-Gjurić, where the full quotation can be
found.[3] Trbuhović-Gjurić does not give a
reference for her much fuller account, which purports to be a verbatim
conversation between Einstein and Marić on the subject
of marriage. However, an identical account is given in a biography of Einstein
by Aylesa Forsee, a writer
of books for children.[4] There can be no doubt that this is the source of Trbuhović-Gjurić’s account, as she gives virtually
word for word (in translation) similar accounts of three other supposed
scenarios involving the pair, two of which also give verbatim dialogue from
conversations, and they occur in the same chronological order on two successive
pages in the respective books. But Forsee’s book was
written for children, and large
sections of it consist of an imaginative story woven around biographical
events, with dialogue that is clearly invented! Yet Trbuhović-Gjurić
reproduced the four reports right down to the verbatim dialogue, despite the
fact that it should have been instantly apparent that there was no possible way
that these conversations could be genuine. And Gabor,
who equally should have been suspicious of such detailed verbatim ‘records’ of
conversations between Einstein and Marić when they were
students, is so lacking in the most basic grasp of what constitutes serious
historical research that she reproduces the gist of one of these conversations
as if it provided factual information about Marić.
Unfortunately this example is only too characteristic of the scholarly
shortcomings of Trbuhović-Gjurić, as I have demonstrated elsewhere.[5] Not
without good reason did the Einstein biographer Albrecht Fölsing
refer to the fictitious dialogues and the combination of fictional
invention and pseudo‑documentation that constitutes much of her book.[6]
But it seems that for Gabor, the fact that she read the ‘information’ quoted
above in a book suffices for her to reproduce it without reservation. (She
cites Trbuhović-Gjurić’s deeply flawed
biography on some twenty occasions as if it were
a serious work of scholarship.)
Certainly, the evidence suggests that Maric had good reason to fear her relationship with
Einstein. Within a year of her return from her semester in
There is
little serious evidence to support this claim that Marić underwent a
“shocking metamorphosis” at this time. Such evidence as Gabor
provides a little later (p. 10) is in relation to anxieties Marić started to experience in regard to some of the subject matter
of her diploma course at Zurich Polytechnic. Rather than put this down to the
natural difficulties an unexceptional student might find with some course
material, Gabor is tendentiously intent on putting
the blame, directly or indirectly, on Marić’s relationship
with Einstein (e.g., p. 8).
Many non-scientific writers on this subject (e.g., Gabor, p. 10) are unable to understand that a student may excel in high school science and mathematics (as did Marić), but nevertheless find higher level work considerably more challenging.
[Philipp] Lenard also would become known for his explanation of
Brownian motion, a theory that explained the unceasing and irregular motion of
minute bodies suspended in liquid and that in turn would help lay the
foundation for Einstein’s later work on the electron theory of metals. (p.
9)
Philipp Lenard did not provide an explanation for Brownian
motion.[7] It was Einstein who did so, in his 1905 paper on Brownian motion.
Following
the citing of passages from letters of Marić’s and Einstein’s
dated August/September 1899, just prior to Marić’s taking the
intermediate diploma examination (one year later than the other students in
their group because of the semester she had spent as an auditor at Heidelberg
University in 1897-1898), Gabor writes: It turned out that, at least for the
moment, Mileva’s fears were ill-founded. Despite
missing one semester, she passed her first year’s examinations, her highest
grade 5.5 out of a possible 6. By contrast, Einstein’s final grade in physics
was 5.25, and he received his only 6 in electrical engineering. (p. 10)
The
figures given in this paragraph are both confusing and tendentiously
misleading. The reference note Gabor provides at this
point reads (p. 294): “Transcripts from ETH [formerly Zurich Polytechnic],
dated 1896-1900. Stachel, The Early Years, p. 49.” The latter is in fact Volume 1 of the Albert Einstein Collected Papers, edited by John Stachel
et al., and Gabor’s reference is to document 28,
headed “ETH Record and Grade Transcript” (pp. 45-50). This document is the
record of Einstein’s course grades at the Polytechnic, and the page that Gabor references gives the Instructors’ performance grades
for Einstein’s Leaving Certificate in 1900, not his final diploma examination
results as Gabor’s presentation seems to imply. On
the other hand, the grade Gabor reports for Marić is for her 1899 intermediate diploma examination (not the
“first year’s examinations” as she inexplicably writes), [8] i.e., the exam
alluded to in the letters cited by Gabor immediately
before her paragraph quoted above.
As is well
known (though not mentioned by Gabor here), in the
latter years at the Polytechnic Einstein neglected his coursework studies
because he was using almost all his spare time following up his own interests
in physics (occasionally skipping classes to do so), so citing his end-of-year
performance grades is misleading as a means of obtaining a measure of his
abilities in the subjects listed. More important, the comparison Gabor should have been making in the above context is of
Einstein’s and Marić’s respective intermediate diploma examination grades,
which give a very different picture. In this examination Einstein did not score
less than 5.5 (on a scale 1-6) for any topic, had an average grade of 5.7, and
came top of the group of five candidates in 1898.[9] On the other hand, sitting
the examination the following year, Marić achieved an
average grade of 5.05, putting her fifth out of the six students in their
group.[10]
Einstein was, in fact, a mediocre student
and one of the few ETH graduates who did nor receive a position as an assistant
upon graduation, which made it difficult for him to obtain a job. (p. 12)
This is
not a balanced summing up of the situation. As recorded above, Einstein
actually came top of their group (students of physics and mathematics studying
for a teaching diploma) in the intermediate diploma examinations, and in the
final two years was more and more inclined to neglect his course material to
enable him to concentrate on his own private research. Given such
circumstances, his final diploma grade in 1900 was quite creditable (see
below). His failure to obtain a post as assistant in physics was the
consequence of the bad personal relationship he had with the professor of
physics, Heinrich Weber.
Maric also had her conflicts
with Weber, who served as a thesis adviser to both young people. But her
relationship with the professor was much better than Einstein’s, who had been
the only graduate from his class to be turned down for a post as an assistant.
By contrast, Maric held a position in Weber’s
laboratory in 1901 and received an excellent evaluation for her work, according
to Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric,
Maric’s biographer. Although the ETH [
For these
contentions Gabor references Dord
Krstić’s “Appendix” to a book of reminiscences
by Elizabeth Roboz Einstein of her deceased husband,
Hans Albert (Einstein’s elder son). Krstić
writes: “It was customary for a graduate to continue studying as an assistant
and eventually receive a doctorate. Even though Mileva
did not have a degree, she was asked to work in the laboratories of Professor
Friedrich [sic] Weber. Her file at
ETH contains evidence of that laboratory work for the summer semester of 1901,
together with an excellent mark”.[11] But there is no good evidence that Marić held any such “position” with Weber, as Gabor contends. Certainly she did not, even provisionally,
have a position as an assistant. Her close friend Helene Kaufler
wrote to her mother on 14 July 1900: “Miss Marić was also offered an assistantship at
the Polytechnic, but because of the students she did not wish to accept it; she
would rather apply for an open position as librarian at the Polytechnic.”[12]
At this date Marić had yet to take the diploma
exam for the first time, so no doubt the offer of an assistantship was
provisional on her passing it. It is highly unlikely that the offer would have
remained open after Marić failed her exam, and
Milan Popović, in the Introduction to his book
containing Marić’s letters to Helene (married
name Savić), states explicitly that she did not
obtain an assistantship.[13]
With
regard to Krstić’s claim that Marić’s file at ETH contains evidence of laboratory
work which she was supposedly undertaking for Weber during the summer semester
of 1901, it seems likely that the ETH record relates to her work on her
dissertation, on which she was still working in the hope of incorporating it
into a Ph.D. thesis. It should be noted that Krstić’s
contentions in his “Appendix” are extremely unreliable, as I have demonstrated
elsewhere.[14] There is no indication in the correspondence between Marić and Einstein, or letters Marić wrote to Helene Kaufler
at the time, that she was working for
Weber in the laboratory. Given all this, Marić
could hardly have received an “excellent evaluation” of her work in a position
in Weber’s laboratory, as Gabor claims. In the
passage quoted above she cites Trbuhović-Gjurić for the claim, but the only
relevant evaluation that the latter provides is Marić’s end-of-year grade for 1899/1900 from the ETH records: Trbuhović-Gjurić records Marić having been awarded a 6 and 5 by Weber for the subject
“Physics laboratory”.[15]
What is clear is that Maric
tried several times to intercede with Weber on Einstein’s behalf – an effort in
which she was unsuccessful and one that may have eroded her relationship with
the professor. In the summer of 1901, Mileva wrote to
her friend Helene Kaufler Savic:
“I’ve already quarreled with Professor Weber two or
three times, but now I am already used to such things. Because of him I have
suffered a lot… We still do not know what destiny has determined for us [Albert
and Mileva]. (p. 13) [Gabor’s
ellipsis]
The
references Gabor provides (p. 295) for the above
contentions comprise the following. One is a letter of Einstein’s dated 23
March 1901 in which he writes in regard to an assistantship under Professor Riecke at the
None of
this shows either that Marić “interceded with
Weber on Einstein’s behalf” even once, let alone “several times” as Gabor contends, or that the problems Einstein had with
Weber had a bad effect on Marić’s relationship
with the professor. Gabor would have us believe that
the disputes with Weber were about Einstein, but there is no evidence that this
is the case. More likely it was to do with her diploma dissertation on which
she was working, as suggested by Einstein’s reference to “critical comments”
from Weber. In a letter to her friend Helene Kaufler
later in 1901 Marić wrote: “I have finished my
studies [i.e., her work on her dissertation that she had hoped would take her
towards a Ph.D. thesis], although, thanks to Weber’s concerns, I have not yet
managed to obtain a doctorate.”[17] This again suggests that the conflict with
Weber may well have been about criticisms he made of her work. Whether or not
this was the case, Gabor provides not the least
evidence for the account that she gives. (I must add that there is an element
of intellectual dishonesty here, in that Gabor
provides references to the passage in question, which misleadingly conveys the
impression that these contain evidence to support her contentions.)
Curiously,
Gabor provides two sentences that do not actually
occur in the letter she cites in the above passage. Immediately after the
sentence in which Marić writes that she was now
used to the disputes with Weber, Gabor quotes her as
saying “Because of him [Weber] I have suffered a lot.” But in both the Collected Papers and Popović
(2003) the sentence which follows is: “Albert is very satisfied in [happy at]
In the
Introduction to her book Gabor goes even beyond the
claim quoted above. She writes more generally that “Marić,
who had an easier relationship with their professors,… often interceded with
them on Einstein’s behalf.” (p. xiii) There is not a scrap of evidence for this
assertion.
Although the final grades for both Maric and Einstein fell below the 5 point average that was
necessary to pass, Einstein’s 4.9 got rounded up to 5 so that he just barely
squeaked by. Maric’s 4 , on the other hand, meant
that she failed outright. (pp. 13-14)
Gabor provides no reference
for her contention that an average grade of 5 was the pass mark for the diploma
examination, and that Einstein’s grade was “rounded up” to enable him to pass.
The source of this claim is the Swiss linguist Senta Troemel-Ploetz, but John Stachel,
founding editor of the Albert Einstein
Collected Papers project, writes: “I have searched the regulations of the
Poly [ETH] in vain for any such rule. The reports of the grades by the head of
the Section VIA of the Poly (Collected
Papers, Vol. 1, p. 247) includes no statement that Einstein failed the
examination.”[19]
Einstein
obtained an average grade of 4.91, compared with Marić’s
4.00, on a grading system 1-6. Since is lowest possible grade was 1, a rough
estimate of their grades in percentage terms gives Einstein a creditable 78%,
and Marić 60%. To put this in perspective,
Einstein’s grade was approximately 11% below the top candidate in their group
(average 5.45), compared with Marić’s being some
18% below Einstein’s.
After years of academic triumph, Maric had lost her momentum. (p.14)
Gabor writes this in the
context of Marić’s failure in the final diploma
exam in 1900. However, it is not the case that before this her academic record
was one of “triumph”. As noted above, her grade in the intermediate diploma
examination placed her fifth out of six candidates in their group.
Although scientists and historians have
pointed to Maric’s failing her exams as proof of her
intellectual inferiority, this hardly seems fair or logical, especially in
light of the fact that Einstein’s own performance at the ETH was relatively
poor! Certainly, it is hard to imagine that the girl who had repeatedly
distinguished herself as a top student in her native Serbia, who had passed the
difficult ETH examination (which Einstein had failed the first time he took
it), as well as the first round of university examinations, and who won at
least some kudos from the hard-to-please Weber was simply not gifted enough to
pass her final test. Robert Schulmann, an Einstein
scholar, suggests that because her finals included an oral component, she might
have been subject to the prejudice of her examiners. It is even more likely
that Mileva’s poor performance was due to anxiety
brought on by both the discovery of her pregnancy and the actual physical
discomforts of her condition, which in Mileva’s case
continued well past her first trimester. (p. 15)
The errors
and misconceptions in this characteristically tendentious passage will take a
little time to unravel. I’ll take them one by one
Einstein’s own performance at the ETH was
relatively poor. As I’ve already noted, Einstein’s grade in the
intermediate diploma exam placed him top of their group. It is true that his
yearly coursework grades were unexceptional, as was his final diploma result,
but Gabor omits to mention that Einstein increasingly
neglected his Polytechnic studies to concentrate on his own private interests
in physics, as is amply shown by his letters to Marić
at that time. He relied strongly on his friend Marcel Grossman’s meticulous
notes to revise immediately prior to the examinations.
Marić…passed the difficult
ETH examination (which Einstein had failed the first time he took it),…
Gabor omits to mention
here that when Einstein took the Polytechnic entry examination in 1895 he was
only sixteen, some two years below the normal age at which the exam was taken,
and had been without formal education for some nine months (in Italy where his
parents had emigrated). Although he failed the exam in some subjects, his
grades in mathematics and physics were so exceptional that the physics
professor, Heinrich Weber, invited him to attend his lectures for second-year
students, and the Director of the Polytechnic, Albin
Herzog, encouraged him to go to the Cantonal School of Aargau
in Aarau, Switzerland, to obtain a school-leaving
diploma.[20] (Contrary to the implication of Gabor’s
words above, Einstein did not take the entrance examination a second time.)
Given that
Marić came fifth out six in the Polytechnic
intermediate diploma exam, and evidently struggled to master some mathematical
topics,[21] it is not “difficult to imagine” that she “was not gifted enough to
pass her final test”, as Gabor contends. Almost
certainly her very poor grade in the mathematics component of the final diploma
(5 on a scale 1-12) suffices to explain her failure.
The
suggestion that because her final exams contained an oral component Marić might have been “subject to the prejudice of her
examiners” is not only without evidential backing, it is hardly consistent with
the fact that she obtained moderately good grades in the other exams
(theoretical physics, practical physics and astronomy). It should also be noted
that Marić only slightly improved her grade in
mathematics when she failed the diploma exam the following year (though
allowance must be made for the fact that she was in the early stages of
pregnancy at the time of her second attempt).[22]
As to Gabor’s writing “It is even more likely that Mileva’s poor performance was due to anxiety brought on by
both the discovery of her pregnancy and the actual physical discomforts of her
condition”, Marić became pregnant in the spring
of 1901, so this could not have been a factor in her first diploma exam failure in 1900.
As long as she could maintain a scientific
dialogue with Einstein and feel that she was helping to develop a new
understanding of the universe and the scientific interests they had shared
since the earliest days of their relationship, then perhaps all her suffering
would have been worth it. (p. 19)
The
implication here that Marić helped “to develop a
new understanding of the universe” is without foundation.[23]
Exactly how much she was to contribute to
Einstein’s work has become the subject of considerable controversy. Much of the
debate revolves around fragmentary evidence suggesting that the original
version of Einstein’s three most famous articles, on the photoelectric effect,
on Brownian motion, and on the theory of relativity, were signed Einstein-Marity, the latter being a Hungarianized
version of Maric. Although the original manuscripts
have been lost, Abraham F. Joffe, a member of the
For the source of this report Gabor references Trbuhović-Gjurić’s book.[24] However, Joffe did not claim that he saw the original papers in the 1955 memorial article in question, nor that the papers were signed Einstein-Marity, and the account presented as fact by Trbuhović-Gjurić and recycled by Gabor is nothing but tendentious inference based on a false premise. John Stachel has meticulously refuted each element of the story in his detailed examination of the claims about Joffe,[25] and in any case on a later occasion Joffe ascribed exclusively to Einstein the special relativity theory, and the theories of Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect.[26] It is characteristic of Gabor’s poor scholarship that she reproduces Trbuhović-Gjurić’s fanciful story without any caveat.
Although there is no evidence to suggest
that Maric came up with any of the original insights
for the three most famous articles attributed to Einstein, she probably
proofread the articles and performed the mathematical calculations for some of
them. Svetozar Varicak, a
student who lived with the Einsteins for several
months in about 1910, remembered how Maric, after a
day of cleaning, cooking, and caring for the children, would then busy herself
with Einstein’s mathematical calculations, often working late into the night. Varicak said he remembered feeling “so sorry for Mileva” that he sometimes helped her with the housework. (p.
20)
For the Varičak story Gabor references both Trbuhović-Gjurić and Krstić.
I have examined elsewhere the claim that it demonstrates that Marić assisted Einstein with his mathematical calculations and
shown it does not stand up to critical examination.[27] However, let’s first
examine how Gabor presents it. She writes that Svetozar Varičak “remembered” the tasks Marić
performed throughout the day and into the early hours of the night, and that he
said he had felt “so sorry for Mileva” that he
sometimes assisted her with household chores. This gives the impression that we
have Varičak’s account which Gabor (following Trbuhović-Gjurić) has merely recorded. In fact what
we have here is an account given by Gabor of an
account by Trbuhović-Gjurić, who reported
that the daughter of Varičak recalled
having heard her father recount how Einstein helped with household tasks from
time to time, and how, after completing her household tasks, Marić worked into the early
hours to solve mathematical problems in Einstein’s notes.[28] So where does the
part of the story about Varičak helping with the
housework come from? It can be found in the Krstić
reference provided by Gabor.[29] Krstić
provides no reference for his version of the story, but in Krstić
(2004) he alludes to the Varičak story again,
this time citing Trbuhović-Gjurić. So the part about Varičak
helping out with the household chores is a misreading by Krstić
which Gabor has reproduced despite the fact that the
first reference she gives clearly differs in this part of the story. She
compounds this poor scholarship by quoting a phrase supposedly by Varičak which Krstić
doesn’t give, and is actually, apparently, a (misconceived) quotation of Trbuhović-Gjurić’s words in relation to Einstein.
We know from a letter date-marked
Trbuhović-Gjurić’s research was conducted in the
1960s, so any report she had from Varičak’s
daughter would have been a
hearsay account given many decades after the event. Possibly Varičak also stayed with the Einsteins
in the earlier period when Einstein held a teaching post in Zurich, in which
case it may be that the story relates to Einstein’s
lecture notes on elementary physics that he had to prepare at that time, though
the notion that Marić solved mathematical
problems for Einstein (who, contrary to legend, was highly competent at
mathematics) is implausible. Third-hand reports, alluding to events many decades in the past, about Marić’s allegedly solving Einstein’s mathematics
problems should be taken with a large grain of salt.[32]
During the early years of her marriage, Maric also spoke frequently to her family and friends about
collaborating with her husband. She told Milana Bota, for instance, about the work she was doing with
Einstein. (pp. 20-21)
As I have
shown elsewhere,[33] the stories reported by Trbuhović-Gjurić about what Marić supposedly
told her family and their friends about collaborating with Einstein on his
scientific work are unreliable third-hand rumour and gossip that circulated
among the proud folk of Novi Sad, the home town of the Marić
family, obtained often some half-century after the event.
The
specific reference to Milana Bota
relates to a passage in Trbuhović-Gjurić’s book in which she writes that a
journalist for the Belgrade paper Politika published an interview with Bota
on 23 May 1929.[34] Trbuhović-Gjurić
provides a quotation from the interview in which Bota
says that Marić was involved with the creation of Einstein’s theory. (Trbuhović-Gjurić does not say what specific theory,
but according to Krstić, it was special
relativity.)[35] However, there are a number of
caveats. First, there is no credible evidence that Marić
had any involvement with the special relativity theory that Einstein arrived at
in 1905.[36] Second, Marić had scarcely any
contact with Bota after the latter left Bern to get married
in March 1900: there are numerous letters that Marić
wrote to Helene Kaufler over the next three decades
in which she requests information about Bota, and
they seem to have met extremely rarely (on one occasion in Belgrade, around
1926) and even written contact was very rare.[37] Third, Bota
disliked Einstein, whom she had once called “the German whom I hate” in a
letter to her mother, and may well have been trying to ingratiate herself with Marić while expressing a lingering resentment against
Einstein, as Highfield and Carter suggest.[38] In a letter to Helene Kaufler, Marić wrote that being interviewed by a journalist gave Bota pleasure, and that she “probably thought that it would
give me pleasure, too, and in a way would help me to obtain certain rights vis-á-vis Einstein in people’s eyes. So she wrote to me,
and we are going to take the money, for otherwise the whole thing would be
pointless.”[39] Evidently Bota was paid for
contributing to the article, and may well have wanted to give value for money.
[Note:
Alberto A. Martínez reports (personal communication) that
the last sentence quoted above from Marić’s
letter is a mistranslation of the German original, which actually contains no
mention of money, thus negating my subsequent comment. However, it is important
to note the opening words of the paragraph in question: “Milana [Bota] could not help
confiding our stories to the newspaper reporter…” The original German reads “unsere Romane” (literally “our
novels”), which in this context carries the implication
of a fictional element, i.e., Marić is indicating that
the accounts Bota gave to the journalist were
embellished.]*
There is
no substantive evidence to support Gabor’s contention
that in the early years of their marriage Marić
spoke frequently to her friends about collaborating with Einstein.
Specifically, there is not the least indication in Marić’s
letters to Helene Kaufler in the period in question
that she herself was working on any physics (and it is difficult to think of
any reason why she would not have at least hinted at some involvement to her
closest friend had there been any). On the contrary, whenever she mentioned
Einstein’s papers in the early period when he was publishing (up to 1906), she
explicitly assigned them solely to Einstein. Furthermore, her words in 1901 in
relation to Einstein’s doctoral dissertation are hardly such as would be likely
to come from someone who collaborated on his research: “I have read this work
with great joy and admiration for my little darling, who has such a clever
head.”[40]
Following
her twofold failure in the
And in 1905, just after the completion of
“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” the initial paper on special
relativity, while the Einstein’s were on vacation in Serbia, Maric boasted to her father and Desana
Tapavica Bala, who was
married to the mayor of Novi Sad: “Just before we left for Novi Sad, we
finished some important work that will make my husband world famous.” (p.
21)
Gabor references Krstić 1991 for this quotation. The source is a
“personal verbal communication, Sida Gajin 1955 and also Zarko Marić 1961”.[45] It should not have to be spelled out
just how unreliable are such reports, passed on over the years in a close
community, of a conversation which supposedly occurred some fifty years
earlier, reported by interested parties.[46] Who knows what Marić
actually said to her father in 1905, whatever tradition has it among the Marić family and friends? The idea that such sources
constitute reliable evidence says much about the poor scholarly standards of
both Krstić and Gabor
(and Trbuhović-Gjurić).
The final severing of intellectual ties
between husband and wife probably occurred around 1913, when Einstein began
collaborating with Marcel Grossman on the general theory of relativity; the
collaboration is particularly noteworthy since, according to Einstein’s
biographer Peter Michelmore, Maric
was “as good as mathematics as Marcel [Grossman].” (p. 25)
Gabor references Krstić (1991) for the quotation here, and it is
characteristic of her poor scholarship that instead of consulting Michelmore’s book she cites Krstić
quoting that author. Now, as I have demonstrated elsewhere,[47] Michelmore’s Profile
of Einstein is not a reliable source of information. His assertion that Marić was as good at mathematics as Grossman does not
bear examination; not only is there not the slightest evidence to support the
claim, it is negated by every documented fact that we have about them. In terms
of examination results, in both the intermediate and final Zurich Polytechnic
diploma examinations Marić received lower
grades than Grossman in every single mathematics topic on which they were both
examined.[48] Moreover, whereas Marić failed her diploma exam with a very poor grade in the
mathematics component, theory of functions, Grossman became professor of
mathematics at Zurich Polytechnic at the age of 29. He also, of course,
assisted Einstein in the application of highly abstruse mathematics to general
relativity theory. But for Gabor it evidently
suffices that she read it in a book (or, rather, read another author quoting
from the book) for her to believe that this absurd assertion of Michelmore’s is worthy of recycling. Since she clearly had
not read Michelmore’s Profile of Einstein, how could she be in any position to judge its
merits as a source of information? Worse, she thinks the Michelmore
assertion is “particularly noteworthy” in the context of Einstein’s turning to
Grossman for assistance in 1912, which can only mean she is suggesting that a
significant factor in Einstein’s choosing to seek help from the pure
mathematician Grossman on tensor calculus rather than from Marić (!) was the breakdown of the couple’s “intellectual ties”.
In the
Introduction to her book, Gabor writes that “it is
unlikely that anyone will ever know for sure the extent of Mileva
Marić’s contribution to Einstein’s early work”,
and goes on to quote (without giving the date) from a letter Einstein wrote to Marić in March 1901: “How happy and proud I will be
when the two of us together will have brought our work on the relative motion
to a successful conclusion.”[49] But not only does this not directly relate to
his development of the special relativity theory some four years later, against
this one use of “our” here, as Stachel points out,
there are a dozen occasions in the letters to Marić
when Einstein uses “I” and “my” when referring to his ideas on this same topic,
the electrodynamics of moving bodies.[50] (And, more generally, all the ideas on extra-curricular topics
in physics came from Einstein in the known letters between the pair.) As the historian of physics Holton
writes in this connection: “But careful analysis of the matter by established
scholars in the history of physics, including John Stachel,
Jürgen Renn, Robert Schulmann, and Abraham Pais, has
shown that scientific collaboration between the couple was minimal and
one-sided. Einstein’s occasional use of the word our was chiefly meant to serve the emotional needs of the
moment.”[51] (Stachel provides a comprehensive analysis of Einstein’s use of personal
pronouns in these letters in the transcript of a talk delivered to the American
Association for the Advancement of Science in 1990.[52])
In a
letter to the New York Times in 1995,
in response to a review of Gabor’s book, the
Einstein specialists, physicist Gerald Holton and historian Robert Schulmann, referred to her “flights
of journalistic fantasy”.[53] It should be evident from the above that this
accurately characterizes much of Gabor’s account of
the life of Mileva Marić.
July 2007
* The
relevant paragraph in Marić’s letter to Milana Bota, 13 June 1929, reads:
Milana hat doch nicht umhin können dem Zeitungsreporter unsere Romane zu übergeben, und ich dachte damals, die Sache sei nun erledigt, ich sprach gar nicht darüber. Solche Veröffentlichungen entsprechen so gar nicht meiner Art, aber ich glaube, die ganze Sache hat Milana Freude gemacht und sicher glaubte sie auch mir damit eine Freude zu machen, und mir gewissermassen zu einigen Rechten E. gegenüber in den Augen Menschen zu verhelfen. So schrieb sie mir und wir wollen die Sache auch auffassen, sonst wäre ja die ganze Sache sinnlos.
Literally translated (Albert A. Martínez[54], personal communication), this reads:
Milana
couldn’t help but give our novellas to the newspaper reporter, and I then
thought: the matter is now closed; I didn’t speak about it at all. Such
publications do not suit my nature at all, but, I believe, the whole thing gave
Milana pleasure and surely she believed that it would
give me pleasure too, and help me to a certain extent get some recognition
regarding E. in the eyes of people. So she wrote me and that’s how we should
interpret the thing, otherwise the whole thing would indeed be senseless.
NOTES (The references refer to the
publications listed in the Bibliography below.)
1. Renn & Schulmann (1992), pp.
62, 64, 98.
2. Hoffman
(1973), pp. 25-26; Isaacson (2007), pp. 21-22; Fölsing
(1997), pp. 26-28, 39.
3. Trbuhović-Gjurić (1983), p. 41; (1991), p. 47.
4. Forsee (1963), pp. 11-12.
7. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1905/lenard-bio.html
8. Trbuhović-Gjurić (1991), p. 70.
9. Collected Papers, Vol. 1, doc. 42.
10. Trbuhović-Gjurić (1991), p. 70.
11. Krstić (1991), p.
90.
12. Popović (2003) p.
61.
13. Popović (2003), p. 6.
15. Trbuhović-Gjurić (1991), p. 50.
16. Collected Papers Vol. 1, docs. 93, 109,
107; Renn & Schulmann,
pp. 36, 51-52.
17. Popović
(2003), p. 78.
18. Collected Papers, Vol
1, doc. 109; Popović (2003), p. 76.
19. Stachel (2002), p. 32.
20. Clark
(1971), p. 45; Hoffman (1973), p. 27; Fölsing (1997),
p. 37.
21. Renn & Schulmann (1992), p.
12.
22. Stachel (2002), p. 29.
24. Trbuhović-Gjurić (1983), p. 79; (1991), pp. 111-12.
25. Stachel (2005), pp. liv-lxxii.
26. Joffe, (1967 [1962]), p. 92.
28. Trbuhović-Gjurić (1983), p. 87; (1991), p. 120.
29. Krstić
(1991), p. 95.
30. Collected Papers, Vol. 10, p. 21.
31. Stachel (2002), p. 230.
34. Trbuhović-Gjurić (1983), pp. 75-76; (1991), p. 106.
35. Krstić
(2004), p. 122.
36. Stachel (2002),
pp. 33-36; Esterson (2006a)
37. Popović
(2003), pp. 75, 82, 89, 95, 106, 112, 113, 123, 127, 129, 134, 135, 138,
140, 147, 152, 158, 160, 162, 163.
38. Highfield & Carter (1993), p. 110.
39. Popović (2003), p. 158.
40. Popović (2003), pp. 70, 79-80, 88.
41. Frank
(1948), pp. 34-35.
42. Solovine (1987), p. 13.
43. Stachel (2005), p. 159.
44. Popovic (2003).
45. Krstić (1991), pp. 93-94.
48. Collected
Papers, Vol. 1 [
49. Collected Papers, Vol. 1, doc. 94; Renn & Schulmann (1992), p. 39.
50. Stachel (2002), p. 36.
51. Holton
(1996), pp. 190-91.
52. Stachel (2002), pp. 33-36.
53.
54. https://webspace.utexas.edu/aam829/1/m/Maric.html
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