My responses to Geraldine Hilton’s replies to my
rebuttals of the claims on the PBS “Einstein’s Wife” Website
Allen Esterson
In response to my enumeration of errors and misleading statements on the PBS Einstein’s Wife website, Geraldine Hilton, writer/producer of the documentary “Einstein’s Wife” on which the website material is based, submitted to the PBS Ombudsman a response that he has copied in an article on his website (scroll down to the end).
I provide below my comments on Hilton’s responses, but first a general point. At the beginning of the enumerated list of errors on the website I clearly stated that the documentation for my statements can be found in the full critique posted on my website. Hilton’s responses (below in CAPITALS) indicate she has made no attempt to examine this documentation or address rebuttals of her claims; she merely repeats her assertions.
In each instance I start by quoting Hilton’s responses, which are prefaced by my enumerated statements in bold type.
On claims made on the PBS “Einstein’s Wife” website:
1. Mileva Maric was not "erased from
history." FALSE. IT WAS NOT UNTIL THE
DISCOVERY OF MARIC AND EINSTEIN'S 'LOVE LETTERS' THAT MARIC BECAME KNOWN TO THE
BROADER, NONSCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AS A SCIENTIST HERSELF. NOT A PROBLEM IF YOU
WISH TO MODIFY WEBSITE.
On the PBS “Einstein’s Wife” website is the statement “The world only knew of Marić’s existence through the first release of Einstein’s private papers in 1987”. This is what they mean by asserting that she was “erased from history”, and I showed the claim is manifestly false by citing several biographies of Einstein written for the general public and published before 1987 which mention Marić. Now Hilton purports to rebut my refutation of the falsehood (she says it is “False”) by saying something very different, that Marić only “became known to the broader, non-scientific community as a scientist herself” after the publication of the letters. Manifestly she has not shown that my objection to the false statement on the PBS website is in error.
In response to Hilton’s revised version of the website claim, there is, of course, a very good reason why Marić was not known to the world as a scientist, that being that she was not a scientist. John Stachel has, in meticulous detail, examined the contentions in question, and concluded there is no evidence to support them. I have myself refuted the contentions, and have referenced the relevant writings of Stachel, in several articles, e.g.: http://www.esterson.org/milevamaric.htm
See also:
http://www.esterson.org/Who_Did_Einsteins_Mathematics.htm
Hilton seems unable to grasp that if she
is to make informed responses to rebuttals she needs to actually read the
arguments of those making them. I can only suggest that readers adopt a more
rational attitude and actually examine the arguments and documentation
presented by Stachel and by me.
2. Einstein
wrote no personal autobiographies, only intellectual autobiographical articles.
INTELLECTUAL INFORMS THE PERSONAL. THIS IS SPLITTING HAIRS.
The website statement I was rebutting is
this: “Einstein’s autobiographies never mentioned his first wife.”
Clearly this is implying that Einstein wrote autobiographies in the normal
sense of the word. This is not the case; Einstein wrote no autobiography
detailing events in his life. Towards the end of his life he contributed an
essay with the title “Autobiographical Notes” for a volume in the series “Library of Living Philosophers”, described by
the publishers as having the following aim: In each volume “a great
philosopher presents his views in an intellectual biography. This is followed
by a number of essays by distinguished scholars who critique the great
philosopher's ideas. The LLP's subject then replies
to each critic...” It is evident that personal details of Einstein’s life
experiences were not appropriate for such a book.
Hilton’s glib
statement that the “INTELLECTUAL INFORMS THE PERSONAL” indicates that she has
failed to understand the context of Einstein’s “Autobiographical Notes”,
although I fully explained it in my extended article
on the PBS website material. The
statements on the PBS website can only
lead readers to believe that Einstein wrote autobiographical books in which he airbrushed his first
wife out of his personal life, which is grossly, and tendentiously, misleading.
If Hilton thinks this is “splitting hairs”, it is a further indication that she
is unable to grasp arguments requiring a modicum of intellectual understanding.
3. Einstein
did mention Maric in one of the autobiographical
sketches. BUT ISN'T THE OBJECTION RAISED ABOVE THAT EINSTEIN DID NOT WRITE
OF THE PERSONAL?
The second article (“Autobiographical
Sketch”) alluded to here was requested for an entirely different book,
containing reminiscences of Einstein, edited by Carl Seelig. In that sketch Einstein made a passing
mention of Marić among very brief personal
autobiographical details in the course of an essay in which his central
interest was in presenting the development of his scientific and philosophical
ideas. To suppose this is in any way a contradiction to what I wrote about the
other autobiographical essay [see (2) immediately above] again casts doubt on
Hilton’s capacity to follow a logical argument.
4. Virtually
all biographies of Einstein before 1987 mention Maric.
MINIMALLY. VERY MINIMALLY — A SENTENCE OR TWO, ONE OF
WHICH DESCRIBES HER AS A "SERBIAN PEASANT" DESANKA TRBHOVIC-GURIC'S
WAS THE FIRST
Hilton writes: MINIMALLY. VERY MINIMALLY
— A SENTENCE OR TWO, ONE OF WHICH DESCRIBES HER AS A "SERBIAN
PEASANT".
First note that my quoted sentence was
in response to the website statement that no biographies of Einstein before
1987 mention Marić, so even a minimal reference
would have refuted that claim. In regard to Hilton’s assertion immediately
above, it is quite extraordinary that she
makes it without actually consulting the biographies in question, some of which
I cited in the article to which I provided a link at the beginning of my
enumerated list of errors. It is absolutely clear that she has no knowledge of
most of these biographies, since some of them give considerable details about Marić, well beyond the “sentence or two” that Hilton
asserts. (One can’t help wondering what is the intellectual cast of mind of
someone who can make such a categorical – and false – statement despite the
fact that she has not even examined the books in question.)
Hilton writes: …ONE OF WHICH DESCRIBES
HER AS A "SERBIAN PEASANT".
I have checked all the biographies of
Einstein that I possess and none of them refers to Marić as a “Serbian
peasant”. So where does Hilton get this quotation from? Evidently it comes from
an article in the Boston
Globe in which the journalist Ellen Goodman writes the following:
“Mileva Maric
Einstein, described in a popular biography as the ‘gloomy, laconic and
distrustful’ Serbian peasant, was due for a comeback.”
So in her response Hilton has:
(i) failed to address
my refutation of the specific false
assertion that I challenged on the PBS website
(ii) replied in turn with another false assertion, namely, that no pre-1987 Einstein
biographies gave more than a minimal reference to Marić
(iii) provided an alleged quotation from a
biography which turns out to be the words of a Boston Globe journalist.
(Note:
The description given in quotes by Goodman above occurs in the biography of
Einstein by Carl Seelig: “Her contemporaries found Mileva a gloomy, laconic and distrustful character.”
Nowhere does Seelig describe her as a “Serbian
peasant”, though he does say she was “the daughter of an honest Serbian peasant
family”.)
I
leave readers to draw their own conclusions about the reliability of Hilton’s
scholarship.
Hilton writes: DESANKA TRBHOVIC-GURIC'S
WAS THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY ON MARIC. IT HAS BEEN TRANSLATED INTO MANY LANGUAGES
BUT AS YET, AND PERHAPS TELLINGLY, NOT ENGLISH.
I only have knowledge of
translations of Trbuhović-Gjurić’s
biography into German and French. I have no idea why it has yet to be
translated into English, but from a close examination of the passages relevant
to the issue of Marić’s alleged contributions to Einstein’s work it has to be said that it is a
deeply flawed book, as I demonstrate in my articles:
http://www.esterson.org/milevamaric.htm
http://www.esterson.org/Who_Did_Einsteins_Mathematics.htm
The same view of Trbuhović-Gjurić’s book is taken by the Einstein biographer Albrecht Fölsing, who describes the book as a combination of “fictional invention and pseudo-documentation”, and by the Einstein scholars Schulmann and Holton, who called it “a nationalist puffery of a biography of Mileva Marić” in a letter written for The New York Times Book Review in 1995.
5. There
is no evidence that "Einstein's executrix systematically destroyed
potential evidence" about Maric's alleged role
in his work. THERE IS EVIDENCE OF CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MARIC AND EINSTEIN
WHICH WAS COPIED DEFINITELY WENT MISSING WHEN HELEN DUKAS, EINSTEIN'S EXECTRIX
DIED. I DID NOT MAKE ANY CLAIMS THAT THESE WERE "POTENTIAL EVIDENCE ABOUT
MARIC'S ALLEGED ROLE IN HIS WORK." IF THE WEBSITE STATES THIS (WHICH I
COULD NOT LOCATE), PLEASE DELETE.
To elucidate, and correct, what Hilton
writes in her first sentence, six letters from Einstein to his future second
wife Elsa Löwenthal in the period 1912-1915 (of which
copies had already been made by John Stachel) were
missing when the Einstein Archive acquired Einstein’s papers. As Robert Schulmann (historian and associate editor of the Albert Einstein Collected Papers
project) has pointed out to me, these contain material that Helen Dukas would have felt was injurious to the “great man”
legend that she wished to protect, which is why it is assumed that she
destroyed them. (Collected Papers, Vol. 5,
documents 389, 391, 399, 488, 489, 497.)
On the website, in relation specifically
to the claims that Marić was “Einstein’s scientific
partner”, is the statement: “The debate remains open, in part because it
appears that Einstein’s executrix systematically destroyed potential evidence.”
This clearly implies Dukas systematically destroyed
letters that could have shed light on the claims of scientific collaboration by
Marić, for which suggestion there is not a scrap
of evidence. (It should be noted that the “love letters” from the early period
of the relationship between Einstein and Marić
were never in the possession of Helen Dukas.)
6. There
is no evidence that Einstein "demands all her time" when Maric was a Polytechnic student, nor that she
"sacrificed her studies" on his account. LETTERS BY HER
GIRLFRIEND MILANA BOTA ATTEST TO THIS.
To my knowledge there is only one relevant
letter by Milana Bota, in
which she wrote to her mother: “I see little of Mitza
[Mileva] because of the German, whom I hate”. This
was written on 7 June 1900, right at the end of the four year diploma course
(on which the pair were examined in July 1900). This comment of Bota’s merely indicates that, once Marić became deeply emotionally involved with Einstein, she preferred to spend her time with him than with her
girlfriends, a not unusual occurrence. This shows neither that Einstein
“demanded” her time (Marić’s letters to
Einstein show that she was at least as keen to spend time with Einstein as he
with her), nor that she in any way sacrificed her studies on his account. The Marić/Einstein correspondence shows that not only did
she continue to study hard on her coursework and exam preparation, Einstein was
equally concerned that she should do so.
That
Hilton interprets Bota’s comment so far beyond what
it actually says speaks volumes about her notion of scholarly research.
7. They did not "both fail their
exams." Einstein passed. SEE OP CIT.
From the relevant Zurich Polytechnic
document:
“Based on these [examination] results,
the Conference of Examiners moves that diplomas be granted to candidates Ehrat, Grossman, Kollros, and
Einstein, but not to Miss Marić.” (Collected Papers, Volume 1, Document
67.)
There really is nothing more to be said
on the matter – which didn’t prevent Senta Troemel-Ploetz speculating wildly on the subject in
Hilton’s documentary. See: http://www.esterson.org/einsteinwife1.htm
8. The
alleged comment of Maric's "We finished some
important work that will make my husband world famous" is unreliable
third-hand gossip. THIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN MARIC BOASTING BUT TO SAY THAT THIS
SOURCE IS GOSSIP IS UNFOUNDED. SOURCE: Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric, biography.
The idea that a reference to any
book, leave aside the deeply flawed biography by Trbuhović-Gjurić, in itself constitutes hard evidence is another illustration of
Hilton limited grasp of the nature of scholarly research. I can only repeat
that I have examined in detail the relevant claims by Trbuhović-Gjurić
(many of which have been uncritically, indeed credulously, recycled by Troemel-Ploetz) and shown them to be unsustainable:
http://www.esterson.org/milevamaric.htm
http://www.esterson.org/Who_Did_Einsteins_Mathematics.htm
9. Maric did not set the condition in the divorce settlement for the Nobel
Prize money to go to her, this was proposed by Einstein. (In fact the capital
was to be held in a bank account for their sons.) FALSE. MILEVA PURCHASED
THREE PROPERTIES AND RESIDED IN ONE OF THESE IN
It is difficult what to make of Hilton’s
response, as she doesn’t actually address what I wrote, which was about the
terms of the divorce settlement, not what events eventually transpired.
According to the PBS website, it was Marić who made divorce
conditional on her receiving the expected Nobel Prize money. The correspondence
between Einstein and Marić shows that this is false; on the contrary, it was Einstein
who made this proposal in his efforts to overcome her reluctance to agree to a
divorce. Hilton fails to address this.
10. There
is no evidence that Maric liked dealing with
statistics. SEE BELOW
11. The
statement that Einstein "doesn't like dealing with statistics" is
scientific nonsense. He made major
contributions to statistical physics over a period of two decades. WE AGREE
THAT EINSTEIN DID MAKE MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO STATISTICAL PHYSICS HOWEVER,
EINSTEIN ALSO WROTE HOW HE DISLIKED MATHEMATICS. THIS DOES NOT DETRACT FROM THE
FACT THAT HE OBVIOUSLY OPERATED AT A HIGH LEVEL IN MATHEMATICS. I RECALL THAT
MAURICE SOLOVINE MAKES A REFERENCE TO THIS, HOWEVER, NEED TO CHECK HIS BOOK
AGAIN.
Hilton writes: HOWEVER, EINSTEIN ALSO
WROTE HOW HE DISLIKED MATHEMATICS.
Yet again I must ask Hilton to have the courtesy to actually read my articles, specifically in this case Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics?, where I demonstrate that her statement quoted immediately above (derived from her consultant Senta Troemel-Ploetz) is absolute nonsense.
12. Joffe is not a "supporter" of the claim that Maric
collaborated on the 1905 papers. I AGREE — PLEASE AMEND AS THE DOCUMENTARY
DOES NOT MAKE THIS CLAIM. WE ASK THE QUESTION "WHY WAS HER NAME THEN NOT
ON THE PUBLISHED PAPERS WHEN JOFFE SAW IT ON THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS?"
Hilton writes: “WE ASK THE QUESTION
"WHY WAS HER NAME THEN
Since the Soviet physicist Abram Joffe did not say
that he saw Marić’s
name was on the original documents, the presumption contained in this question
is entirely false. See:
A. A. Martinez (2005): Handling
Evidence in History: The Case
of Einstein's Wife.
J. Stachel
(ed.) (2005). Einstein’s Miraculous Year:
Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics, pp. liv-lxiii.
See also my article http://www.esterson.org/milevamaric.htm.
13.
Joffe nowhere "declares that he personally saw
the names of two authors on the 1905 papers." PLEASE CORRECT THE
WEBSITE TO STATE THAT JOFFE SAW THE NAMES 'EINSTEIN-MARITY' ON THE ORIGINAL
SUBMISSION OF THE 1905 PAPERS.
Hilton’s proposed amendment is just as
false as the original. Joffe said nothing about
seeing the original manuscripts. See references in (12) immediately above.
An additional point is that Hilton, and
her consultant Troemel-Ploetz, are evidently unable
to grasp that her words “the names ‘Einstein-Marity’”
contains a self-contradiction. Einstein-Marity is one
name, not two “names”, and Joffe describes the person
referred to as “a bureaucrat at the Patent Office in
There has been an attempt to make a
tortuous argument out of the idiosyncratic form of the name that Joffe used in his obituary, and this has been examined, and
refuted in meticulous detail, by Stachel in the above
referenced book (Stachel, 2005, pp. lvii-lxiii). Anyone who has not read the several pages in
question is not in a position to continue to maintain the position taken by Troemel-Ploetz in her much-cited 1990 article, which
references the report in Trbuhović-Gjurić’s book that contains a travesty of what Joffe wrote (Trbuhović-Gjurić, 1983, p. 79;
1991, pp. 111-112). Troemel-Ploetz,
who credulously recycles anything she finds in Trbuhović-Gjurić’s book that is grist for her mill, presents her own
erroneous version of what Joffe wrote on page 419 of
her 1990 article.
14. The
fragment of a page on the website purporting to be from an article by Joffe is actually by someone else. SEE EXPLANATION ON
DOCUMENTARY REBUTTALS.
I don’t know what Hilton thinks the word
“explanation” means, but it is entirely inadequate as a description of her
response to the same point I made in relation to her documentary. See item
(24), dealt with under item 2, at: http://www.esterson.org/Defending_Einsteins_Wife_2.htm
On the PBS website, under the heading The Mileva Question, is the statement that “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 Marić)” [my italics].) Not only is the italicised claim completely false, the fragment of a page shown adjacent to the claim is not by Joffe. No “explanation” can alter the fact that both in the documentary and on the webpage the viewer/reader has been seriously misled.
15. There
are no "tantalizing clues" suggesting Maric's
collaboration with Einstein in any letters to her friends. FALSE. THERE IS
FIRST HAND PRIMARY EVIDENCE BY MARIC, EINSTEIN, FELLOW STUDENTS THAT MARIC
PLAYED A CRITICAL PART IN EINSTEIN'S FORMATIVE YEARS LEADING UP TO 1905.
First note that the claim I
was rebutting is that there are “tantalizing clues in the letters Mileva exchanges with Albert, and with their friends” concerning the contention that Marić co-authored Einstein’s celebrated 1905
papers. That this is what I was alluding to in my enumeration of errors on the
PBS website is clear from the article to
which I drew readers attention at the beginning of my
enumeration. This means that Hilton’s response above completely fails to
address my specific criticism. There is, in fact, nothing in any of the
correspondence between Marić, Einstein and their friends that remotely suggests that she
had any role in the 1905 papers. On the contrary, in a letter from late 1906
that Marić wrote to Helene Kaufler she
reported of Einstein that “the papers he has written are already mounting quite
high”, with not the slightest hint that she had the least involvement with
them.
However, let’s now deal with the ‘reply’ by Hilton, which actually addresses a different issue, the claim that, more generally, Marić collaborated in the development of Einstein’s advanced research (indeed “played a critical [sic] part” in it) before 1905.
I shall break Hilton’s claim (of
evidence by Marić,
Einstein, and fellow students) down to its individual parts. First the alleged
evidence by Marić. The short answer is that there is no evidence in any of her
surviving letters of any collaboration on Einstein’s personal research on
advanced physics. Second, Einstein:
The claims in relation to Einstein’s letters to Marić in the period 1898-1901 have been examined in considerable
detail by John Stachel and by me, and found to be without
foundation. See my article http://www.esterson.org/milevamaric.htm, and the relevant Stachel
citations therein. Third, fellow students: Hilton claims
there is “first hand primary evidence” from fellow students. However I know
of no documentary evidence from Marić’s and Einstein’s fellow students which support this claim, and
my familiarity with the literature in question makes me confident there is none.
However in her response to the item 1 in reply to my enumeration of errors in
her documentary Hilton copied this
statement from the Mileva
Marić entry in Wikipedia. “Back in
[N.B. Since I discovered that the
reference to Michelmore’s biography in the Wikipedia entry for Mileva Marić is erroneous, I
have deleted the item from that webpage, giving the explanation in the Wikipedia discussion page.]
I note
that Hilton’s wording in her ‘reply’ is more than a little vague: “Marić played a critical part in Einstein’s formative years.” This
could, of course, cover the emotional support she gave him in this period, in
which case no one will dispute it. Nor will anyone dispute that, under
Einstein’s encouragement, they read extra-curricular books by contemporary
eminent physicists together during their time at the Polytechnic.
Yet again I direct readers to my articles
refuting the claims of collaboration by Marić on Einstein’s advanced work, and to the citations of the relevant
writing of John Stachel:
http://www.esterson.org/milevamaric.htm
http://www.esterson.org/Who_Did_Einsteins_Mathematics.htm
Finally,
I shall quote sentences from Einstein’s letters to Marić in the period in
question that are inconsistent with the “collaboration” thesis. The first is in
a letter from September 1899 in which Einstein writes: “In Arrau
I had a good idea or investigating the way in which a body’s relative motion
with respect to the luminiferous ether affects the
velocity of the propagation of light in transparent bodies. I even came up with
a theory that seems quite plausible to me. But enough of this! Your poor little
head is already crammed full of other
people’s hobby horses that you’ve had to ride.” [My emphasis.] Einstein is
clearly saying that in reporting his ideas on the subject of motion relative to
the ether he is aware that it is not something of especial interest to her.
The second
quotation is from a letter Einstein wrote to Marić in December 1901:
“Soon you’ll be my ‘student’ again, like in
16. The
editors of the Einstein Collected Papers have not "claimed neutral
territory." They say unequivocally that the evidence does not support the
collaboration claims. AMEND WEBSITE TO REFLECT THEIR CLAIM AS STATED HERE.
17. There
is no evidence "to confirm that… Einstein did have a partner …in his
scientific research — his first wife Mileva Maric Einstein." FALSE. THERE IS SUFFICIENT
EVIDENCE INCLUDING ROBERT SCHULMANN ADMITTING IN THE DOCUMENTARY THAT SHE
PROBABLY DID CONTRIBUTE TO EINSTEIN'S PUBLISHED CAPILLARITY PAPER.
Robert Schulmann did not say that Marić “probably” contributed to Einstein’s first published paper, on capillarity paper (1901). What he actually said is this: “It is very conceivable that Mileva had input on the paper on capillarity.” Evidently Hilton fails to grasp the difference between something being conceivable and there being hard evidence that it was the case. (A great many contentions are conceivable, even very conceivable, but are nevertheless false.) In any case, Hilton doesn’t seem able to comprehend that it is not a question of what any specific individual thinks about a contention, but what evidence there is for it. So let’s look at the overall evidence on this specific question.
On 3 October 1900 Einstein wrote
from
The question is whether Einstein’s
use of the collective “we” in this letter indicates appreciable collaboration
on the work between the couple, or is an instance of Einstein’s trying to draw Marić into his world of extra-curricular physics. The actual
results alluded to by Einstein he unambiguously attributes to himself, and as
they had been separated since the end of their exams in July there would have
been no opportunity for joint work. He writes “we’ll” try to get some empirical
data from Kleiner [Prof Alfred Kleiner,
at the
The second
relevant document is a letter from Marić to Kaufler dated 11 December 1900 which is full of personal
material, but contains no suggestion she had undertaken any joint work with
Einstein recently. The final piece of evidence comes in a letter Marić wrote to Kaufler on 20 December
1900. Again there is no hint of her having worked on the paper with Einstein.
On the contrary, she writes, “Albert wrote a paper in physics that will
probably soon be published in the Annalen der Physik.” Is it really
conceivable that had Marić collaborated on the paper to any appreciable degree she would
not so much as hinted as much to her closest friend. My view is that this is
unlikely in the extreme. In the following sentence in this letter Marić writes: “You can imagine how proud I am of my darling.” These
are not the words of someone who collaborated on the paper to which she is
referring. Given also that the only information we have about actual research
done for the paper refers exclusively to what Einstein wrote he had obtained, I conclude that the
inclusive “we” in the letter of 3 October indicates no more than that Einstein
was trying to draw Marić into his exciting world of research on fundamental notions in
physics, as is evident in many of his letters from their student days.
This does
not exclude the possibility that Marić assisted Einstein
in looking up data (though we have no evidence that this is the case with
regard to the capillarity paper), but there is no hard evidence that she collaborated with him on the paper, and what
she wrote in her letter to Kaufler on 20 December
1900 strongly suggests that she did not.
It is also worth recording that in April 1901 Einstein wrote to his friend Marcel Grossman, “As for science I have a few splendid ideas”, including that “my theory of atomic attraction forces [i.e., relating to his capillarity paper] can also be extended to gases”.
18. Maric was not "a gifted scholar and scientist" before she met
Einstein. She had just graduated from high school. MARIC OBTAINED THE
HIGHEST MARKS IN HER HIGH SCHOOL IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE. IT IS A STRETCH
THOUGH TO SAY SHE WAS A SCIENTIST AT THAT STAGE SO PLEASE AMEND WEBSITE. REFER Trbuhovic-Gjuric.
I am glad that Hilton rejects the absurd
notion that Marić was a gifted scientist (or any sort of scientist) when she
had recently graduated from high school, with no evidence that she had done any
work beyond her school curriculum. However, in the context of the claims of Marić having collaborated on Einstein’s great papers of 1905,
describing her as “a gifted scholar” is also questionable. As Hilton writes,
she obtained excellent grades for mathematics and science on graduation from
high school. (However, my reading of Trbuhović-Gjurić’s report on Marić’s school results
suggests that her phrase “the best marks in mathematics and physics” could well
have been referring to Marić own best marks, rather than saying that
she obtained better marks than the other school students in her class as Hilton
writes. It is probably significant that Dord Krstić, who never passes over an opportunity to
inflate the claims about Marić, writes (2004, p. 30) that her
best grades were in mathematics and
physics, not that in those subjects she obtained the highest grades in her high
school.) Marić fared less well at Zurich Polytechnic,
achieving an average grade that placed her fifth of six in her intermediate
exam, and last (failed) of five in the final exam in 1900. Her mediocre exam
performances at the Polytechnic, to my mind, preclude her being described as a
“gifted scholar” in the context of high level academic work (unless one is of
the school of thought that we are all
“gifted”!)
19. The
only documented "knowledge" Maric
"shared with Albert" was a short rather jocular passage about one
lecture on the speed of oxygen molecules. N/A
The PBS website says: “They shared
information through their writing. She brought back [from
20. There
is no evidence that Maric was doing any
extra-curricular "research." SEE NOTE IN DOCUMENTARY REBUTTALS.
EINSTEIN AND MARIC WRITE IN THEIR CORRESPONDENCE THAT THEY WERE WAS READING THE
CLASSIC WORKS OF BOLTZMANN, DRUDE, HELMHOLTZ, HERZ, KIRCHKOFF AND OSWARD.
MILEVA IN ONE OF HER LETTERS ALSO RECOMMENDS EINSTEIN READ PLANCK. SHE
OBVIOUSLY KNEW OF THIS MAJOR SCIENTIFIC FIGURE'S SIGNIFICANCE.
Hilton writes: EINSTEIN AND MARIC WRITE IN THEIR CORRESPONDENCE THAT
THEY WERE WAS READING THE CLASSIC WORKS OF BOLTZMANN, DRUDE, HELMHOLTZ, HERZ,
KIRCHKOFF AND OSWARD
No, Marić does not write this, only
Einstein refers to “classic works” by the authors cited by Hilton that he is
reading and wants Marić to study with him. Marić’s letters are
almost entirely taken up with personal matters, and even where we have two
surviving letters of hers in direct response to Einstein’s in which he writes
excitedly of extra-curricular physics he is currently working on, she gives no
response whatever to this. In complete contrast, in Einstein’s letters we
frequently find him enthusing about the extra-curricular physics he is reading
about, or the research he is himself doing.
Hilton writes: MILEVA IN ONE OF HER
LETTERS ALSO RECOMMENDS EINSTEIN READ PLANCK. SHE OBVIOUSLY KNEW OF THIS MAJOR
SCIENTIFIC FIGURE'S SIGNIFICANCE.
This is the only mention of any writings by physicists in Marić’s letters. Now let’s
examine the context in which Planck’s name is mentioned. In the paragraph in
question Marić wrote some sentences about non-physics books that Einstein
had sent her, then adds: “Have you read the Planck yet? It looks interesting.”
Clearly she is referring to a paper by Planck that Einstein already knew about,
so she is not, as Hilton claims, “recommending” it to Einstein. But what is
significant about this is that all she can say about it is a vague “It looks
interesting”. It is not even clear from this that she had read it closely. It
is inconceivable that Einstein would have written about a newly-read paper by
Planck in this fashion. He would have discussed the subject matter, and said if
he agreed or disagreed with sections in the paper. It is instructive to look at
Marić’s next letter and see what happens when she reads a publication
that really interests her. After
referring again to one of the books Einstein had sent her (by August Forel, director of a Swiss psychiatric clinic), she writes
a quite lengthy passage on what is evidently a topic dealt with in the book,
hypnotism. The contrast between this passage and the brevity of her comment on
the Planck paper is, I suggest, revealing. There is little doubt about which
subject she is more interested in.
21. Maric's overall average final diploma mark was not "slightly below Albert's," it was considerably below (by approximately 18%) on the grading scale 1-6. 18% IS JUST NOT WORTH THE BOTHER — HER GRADES WERE COMPARABLE EXCEPT IN ONE SUBJECT.
While it is true that Marić’s grades in physics topics were moderately good, Einstein’s
grade was higher than Marić’s in every topic other than one in which they were equal. The
“one subject” alluded to by Hilton was the mathematics component (theory of
functions) in which she obtained a very poor 5 on a grade scale 1-12. (The poor
grade in mathematics must surely have been the reason she was not awarded a
diploma.)
The reason why
one should “bother” is that the relevant statement on the PBS website, that Marić’s final diploma mark was only
“slightly below” Einstein’s, is false. The difference between their average
grades was approximately 18%, some 50% greater than the difference between
Einstein’s and the top candidate in their group (though they are not strictly comparable,
as that candidate specialised in mathematics).
22. Maric was not "denied" a diploma, she failed because of her very low mathematics grade. DENIED OR FAILED HAVE THE SAME MEANING. AMEND TO READ FAILED.
Hilton clearly doesn’t understand that
saying that Marić was “denied” a diploma carries the connotation that she was
denied something she deserved. I suggest she looks up the meanings of
the two words in a dictionary if she thinks they mean the same.
23. There
are very many more instances of Einstein using "I" and "my"
in relation to his extracurricular work in letters when they were students than
of his use of "we" and "our." The relatively rare use of
"our" sometimes referred to their co-operative study on their diploma
dissertations, not Einstein's personal work on physics. Also, Einstein's first
important papers were not published until several years later. NOT
RELEVANT.
Hilton’s response here is only
comprehensible if she has failed to examine my articles on the subject (as
against my straight enumeration of errors) and the relevant writings of Stachel that I cite. Since she has clearly not done so, she
is not in any position to know if what I have written above is irrelevant.
24. The
statement that Maric "studied physics at the
highest levels" is totally without evidential support. BLATANTLY
FALSE. THEORETICAL PHYSICS WAS THE NEW GROUND OF SCIENCE AT THAT TIME.
I’ll be charitable, and say that
Hilton’s response here is cryptic. Nevertheless I’ll try to decipher it. Let’s
presume she is meaning to say that Marić was studying
theoretical physics at Zurich Polytechnic. But theoretical physics, along with
experimental physics, was part of the course that all such students would study
in a course for teaching mathematics and physics to secondary school students,
and it was most definitely not “physics at the highest levels”. But she may be
meaning that Marić researched in higher level physics after she had twice failed
her diploma examination. For this contention there is no documentable
evidence, as Stachel (and I) have demonstrated by
closely examining the material adduced in support of it.
25. There
is no evidence that Maric collaborated with Einstein
on his work when she was his wife. PLEASE SUPPLY EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY.
Hilton doesn’t seem to comprehend that
the onus is on someone who makes claims as to a certain state of affairs to
provide hard evidence it is the case. I can’t supply evidence that Anna
Magdalena Bach didn’t compose a number of Johann Sebastian’s works. I doubt
many people would think this suggests that she did.
26. They
did not "publish some early works together," nor "conduct
research together" outside of their Polytechnic studies. AGAIN, REFER
TO EINSTEIN'S PUBLISHED CAPILLARITY PAPER AND ROBERT SCHULMANN'S STATEMENT IN
HIS INTERVIEW WHEN HE ADMITS MARIC LIKELY PLAYED A ROLE IN THE CAPILLARITY
PAPER.
I have already dealt very fully with
this in item 17 above. Schulmann didn’t say it was
“likely” she played a role, only that it was “very feasible”. Many things are
very feasible but nevertheless false.
And in any case it is the documentable evidence that
counts, not the opinion of any single
individual.
27. The
statement that Maric brought back from
MILEVA SPENT HER WINTER SEMESTER
1897-1898 IN
It is generous of Hilton to display both
her deficiencies of logic and her ignorance of the subject matter on which she
writes so clearly for all to see. My statement was in response to the claim on
the PBS website that Marić brought back information that “served as part of the
foundation of quantum mechanics”. In her supposed rebuttal of my rejection of
that statement it now appears that the information was relevant not to quantum
theory but to Brownian motion! But what she writes is scarcely more sensible
than the statement on the website. What Marić was reporting to
Einstein related to a topic in the kinetic theory of gases that would have been
in the course at Zurich Polytechnic. The idea that Einstein, who was always
eager to read outside the syllabus, needed Marić to tell him about
this is absurd. He was soon reading far more advanced books by Boltzmann, a pioneer in the kinetic theory of gases.
Hilton writes REFER TO LENARD'S WORK ON QUANTUM MECHANICS.
(i) Lenard did not do any work on quantum physics, as can be
seen from the long list of his work on physics that Hilton has copied below
(item 32) from Wikipedia.
(ii) Hilton, unsurprisingly, does not
know the difference between quantum physics and quantum mechanics.
[Note: Hilton’s second paragraph above
(in capitals) under item 27 is copied directly from a webpage of the Tesla
Memorial Society of New York. This accounts for the fact that whereas on the
PBS website the claim is that Marić brought back information from her semester spent at
28.
There is not a scrap of evidence that "Mileva's
name [was] removed" as co-author from the celebrated 1905 papers. SEE
FOLLOWING:
ABRAM FEDOROVICH JOFFE (IOFFE) RECOUNTS
THAT THE ORIGINAL PAPERS HE SAW WERE SIGNED "EINSTEIN-MARITY."
"MARITY" IS A VARIANT OF THE SERBIAN "MARIC," MILEVA'S
MAIDEN NAME. JOFFE, WHO HAD SEEN THE ORIGINAL 1905 MANUSCRIPT, IS ON RECORD AS
STATING: "FOR PHYSICS, AND ESPECIALLY FOR THE PHYSICS OF MY GENERATION —
THAT OF EINSTEIN'S CONTEMPORARIES, EINSTEIN'S ENTRANCE INTO THE ARENA OF SCIENCE
IS UNFORGETTABLE. IN 1905, THREE ARTICLES APPEARED IN THE 'ANNALEN DER PHYSIK',
WHICH BEGAN THREE VERY IMPORTANT BRANCHES OF 20TH CENTURY PHYSICS. THOSE WERE
THE THEORY OF BROWNIAN MOVEMENT, THE THEORY OF THE PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT AND THE
THEORY OF RELATIVITY. THE AUTHOR OF THESE ARTICLES — AN UNKNOWN PERSON AT THAT
TIME, WAS A BUREAUCRAT AT THE PATENT OFFICE IN BERN, EINSTEIN-MARITY (MARITY —
THE MAIDEN NAME OF HIS WIFE, WHICH BY SWISS CUSTOM IS ADDED TO THE HUSBAND'S
FAMILY NAME)." 286 . . .
ALBERT EINSTEIN NEVER SIGNED HIS NAME
"EINSTEIN-MARITY" IN ANY OF HIS PUBLISHED PAPERS. SWISS LAW PERMITS
THE MALE, THE FEMALE, OR BOTH, TO USE A DOUBLE LAST NAME, BUT THIS MUST BE
DECLARED BEFORE THE MARRIAGE, AND IT WAS MILEVA, NOT ALBERT, WHO OPTED FOR THE
LAST NAME "EINSTEIN-MARITY." A MARRIED PERSON MAY USE THE HYPHENATED
"ALLIANZNAME" IN EVERYDAY USE, BUT IT WAS MILEVA WHO WENT BY
"EINSTEIN-MARITY," NOT ALBERT. ALBERT SIGNED HIS MARRIAGE RECORDS
SIMPLY "EINSTEIN." MILEVA'S DEATH NOTICE READS
"EINSTEIN-MARITY." WHY IT WAS DROPPED IN PUBLICATION IS AN UNSOLVED
MYSTERY.
The footnote number 286 at the end of
the first paragraph reveals (by means of a Google search) that all but the last
sentence above is again copied directly from a webpage of the Tesla
Memorial Society of New York. This no doubt accounts for the fact that, for the
very first time, Hilton has accurately quoted what Joffe
actually wrote! However, there is something more interesting to note about the
two paragraphs above that Hilton has copied. The link on the Tesla Society
webpage indicates that the passage in turn comes from a webpage on the
website of Christopher John Bjerknes. Bjerknes is an eccentric anti-semite
who posts on a Holocaust denier website.
Bjerknes’s antipathy to Einstein is indicated by his describing
him as the “chief racist” among the political Zionists of his time, and his
writing that “Einstein hated non-racist Jews”. His book on Einstein received a
scathing review
from John Stachel.
I’m sure that Hilton would be horrified to know that, in regard to the second paragraph she has copied above (which purports to explain away the fact that Joffe clearly cited Einstein as the sole author of the three most celebrated of his 1905 papers), she is citing the arguments of a rabid anti-semite with an intense antipathy to Einstein. That does not, in itself, mean that Bjerknes’s contentions in that paragraph are false. Like any assertions, they must be examined on their merits.
The paragraph in question by Bjerknes merely points out that it is not correct to give
Einstein’s name in the form Einstein-Marity, and that
Einstein would never have signed his name in this manner. But that is entirely
beside the point. The question is, was Joffe under the mistaken impression that at that time in
Again, I advise anyone genuinely
interested in the claims about the Joffe quotation to
consult John Stachel’s comprehensive treatment of the
issue in Einstein’s Miraculous Year: Five
Papers That Changed the Face of Physics (ed. J. Stachel),
2005, pp. liv-lxiii. The fact that they have not
attempted to rebut what Stachel has written there
indicates that that neither Hilton nor Troemel-Ploetz has taken the trouble to examine his arguments.
Perhaps one day they’ll understand that genuine scholarship requires one to
read the arguments of one’s critics instead of merely repeating assertions that
have been decisively refuted.
29. To
say that Maric "had the education and the
ability to conduct the research" that Einstein did displays a gross
ignorance of Einstein's prodigious achievements in his early twenties. THIS
DOES NOT DETRACT FROM EINSTEIN'S OBVIOUS GENIUS.
I’m beginning to suspect that Hilton is
a mistress of the non sequitur! The question is not about Einstein’s genius,
but about the absurd claim that spending four years on a diploma course for
teaching mathematics and physics to secondary school children (even if one
doesn’t fail the exam) provides sufficient education to conduct the research
required to arrive at the epoch-making 1905 papers published by Einstein. On
the other element in the claim, that Marić had “the ability” to conduct [Einstein’s]
research: Anyone who has an appreciation of the prodigious nature of Einstein’s
achievements in 1905 (which rapidly placed him among the foremost theoretical
physicists in the world) and a modicum of knowledge about Marić would recognize that this was not the
case. Only someone entirely ignorant of the nature of the papers in question
could make such a suggestion.
Incidentally, the context of the claim I
was rebutting is advice to schoolteachers as follows:
“Discuss
with students their own opinion about Mileva. She had
the education and the ability to conduct the research…” So
teachers are told to tell their school students that someone who couldn’t even
obtain a diploma for teaching in high school, and for whom there is no
documented evidence of advanced work in physics, had the ability to have
produced Einstein’s 1905 papers. This is nearer to brainwashing than to
education.
30. There
is no evidence that "they worked closely together for years" on his
papers. FALSE. MILEVA REMAINED AN ARDENT SUPPORTER OF EINSTEIN'S CONTINUING
RESEARCH EVEN AFTER THEIR DIVORCE, REQUESTING HIM TO SEND HER HIS LATEST
RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS. PRIMARY EVIDENCE FROM
Frankly, such a ‘reply’ is scarcely
worthy of a response. However, I shall endeavour to provide one.
Hilton writes: PRIMARY EVIDENCE FROM
EINSTEIN SCHOLARS STATE THAT THE 1905 PAPERS WERE THE CULMINATION OF HIS
STUDENT YEARS AT THE ETH AND AS A POST GRADUATE.
In the case of a theoretical physicist
like Einstein, everything is a
culmination of what went before. What this has to do with the claim that Marić worked closely together with Einstein for years [by
implication, given the context, on his advanced physics projects] is anybody’s
guess.
Hilton writes: MILEVA WAS BY HIS SIDE FOR THE MAJOR PART OF THESE 8 YEARS.
Judging by the paragraph above, the eight
years extends from 1897 to 1905. In their student years from 1897 to 1900 they
spent a lot of time together, but it is an exaggeration to say Marić was by his side most of that time. (They were not, after all,
living together.) During 1901, when Einstein had a teaching post in north
Switzerland and later spent time with his parents, Marić spent much of the latter part
of the year with her family. She gave birth to their daughter Lisserl in January 1902, and remained with her family until
she went to
Letters to her
close friend Helene Kaufler in the period after her
second failure to obtain a teaching diploma provide no indication that Marić maintained an active interest in physics. In the
autumn of 1901 she reported that she had finished her studies at the
Polytechnic, but does not say anything about keeping up any work in physics
beyond this. In a letter written in December 1901 she reported that Einstein
had finished his (first) Ph.D. thesis, which she had “read with great joy and
real admiration for my little darling, who has such a clever head” – hardly the
words of someone who was collaborating on his research. Furthermore, none of
her letters to Kaufler in the ensuing years provide
the least indication of her being involved in any research herself, and papers
of Einstein’s that she refers to are unambiguously attributed to him alone.
Hilton writes: MILEVA REMAINED AN ARDENT SUPPORTER OF EINSTEIN'S CONTINUING RESEARCH EVEN AFTER THEIR DIVORCE, REQUESTING HIM TO SEND HER HIS LATEST RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS.
I am not familiar with the letters at
that late stage, so I would have been interested to see the citations for
Hilton’s statement.* (I can’t say I’ve been impressed by the reliability of
Hilton’s claims on more significant matters.) Nevertheless, it is irrelevant to
the point at issue. That Marić
took an interest in Einstein’s later career does not indicate any involvement
with his work at an earlier stage. One thing is certain. Someone for whom there
is no evidence that she herself kept up any work in physics after leaving the
Polytechnic, and in addition went through the harrowing times that Marić experienced in the
period 1914-1920 (and beyond) could not remotely have understood the kind of
theoretical physics Einstein was engaged in during the 1920s. [*NOTE: Barbara
Wolff at the Albert Einstein Archives in
Returning to the claim on the PBS
website that Einstein and Marić
“worked closely together for years”, there is not the slightest hint in Marić’s letters to
Helene Kaufler at any time that she was working on
ideas in physics. Later on, around 1909-1910, she writes in terms that indicate
that she is not exactly happy that Einstein’s work on advanced physics takes up
so much of his time. For example, she bemoaned to Kaufler
that, having given up his “daily eight hours” in the Patent Office, “he will
now be able to devote himself to his beloved science, and only science”. (Marić’s
emphasis.) A year or so later she wrote in regard to Kaufler’s
saying the Marić
“must be jealous of science” that she “long[ed] for love”, and in the same
context refers to “the damned science”. In contrast, Einstein’s correspondence
with numerous physicists in the years following the publication of the 1905
papers reveals him to be immersed in his world of high level physics, and
contains an extraordinary variety of ideas he is working on (or debating with
other physicists). It is only too evident that proponents of the collaboration
thesis, like Hilton and Troemel-Ploetz, have not the
least conception of the prodigious work Einstein was doing during these years,
and are under the illusion that Marić
was capable of keeping abreast of such work, which was formidable even by the
standards of advanced physics.
It is important to appreciate that the
contention I was rebutting in item 30 is in one of the school student lesson
plans in a section relating to their time at Zurich Polytechnic, and reads as follows
(the statement in italics in parentheses is the ‘information’ being provided
for the teachers):
“Ask students to describe how they [Einstein and Marić] worked together. (They worked together on new theories on the cutting edge of physics…)
As
I’ve emphasized repeatedly, the claim that Marić worked together
with Einstein on “new theories on the cutting edge of physics” is without
foundation, either during their time together at the Polytechnic as claimed
here, or in the following years. It is reprehensible that teachers are instructed to state the above assertion to their
innocent students as if it is an indubitable fact. And there is an equally
egregious example immediately before this in the same lesson plan, where
teachers are informed for passing on to their students:
(They published some early works together and conducted research together. They shared information through their writing. She brought back information that served as part of the foundation of quantum mechanics)
There are no less than four falsehoods
in this short passage. That PBS is complicit in the production of such material
as part of school lesson plans is a blot on its reputation as the foremost
provider of educational material for schools in the
31. Maric was not "a pioneering woman in the world of physics," and
she did not "contribute" to Quantum Physics. FALSE. MARIC WAS A
PIONEERING WOMAN IN THE WORLD OF PHYICS. SHE WAS ONE OF THE FIRST WOMEN TO UNDERTAKE
THEORETICAL PHYICS AT THE ETH AND WAS ONE OF ONLY A HANDFUL OF WOMEN TO STUDY
MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS AT HEIDLEBERG UNIVERSITY.
First note that the statement on the PBS
website I was challenging is the following:
“Mileva Einstein-Marić was, in many ways, a pioneering woman in the
world of physics. She and her husband, Albert Einstein, studied and contributed
to the then developing field of Quantum Physics.”
It is evident that by “a pioneering woman” the writer means that Marić was involved in advanced work in physics, not that she was a pioneer in the sense that Hilton writes about in her response to this item. There is no evidence that Marić did high level (or indeed any) research in physics beyond her Polytechnic studies, and, more specifically, none that she made any contributions to quantum physics.
On a minor point, Marić did not “undertake
theoretical physics” at Zurich Polytechnic (later ETH) other than in the
mundane sense that it was part of her standard teaching diploma course, along
with experimental physics.
32. Philipp Lenard was not "a pioneer in quantum
physics." SEE FOLLOWING:
Biography
Philipp Lenard was born in
[There follows a long list of Lenard’s professional achievements, copied by Hilton from
the Philipp Lenard entry on Wikipedia.]
Hilton has wasted her time copying this
material, as none of it includes pioneering work in quantum physics! This is
yet another indication that Hilton is completely out of her depth concerning
the academic subject matter she purports to be dealing with.
33. Maric did not learn "cutting edge physics" with Lenard. SEE ABOVE.
The notion that the impressive list of Lenard’s achievements in experimental physics is an answer
to my statement is another instance of Hilton’s totally inadequate responses. Marić attended
34. There
is no evidence that Maric "cut classes" at
Here is what Robert Schulmann
said in the documentary:
“It's well known that Einstein of course
did not attend many courses but was able to use the notes from his good friend
Marcel Grossman. And, my view of Mileva is that she
was a much more orthodox student in that she did attend classes and, however
successful or not, she took her coursework very seriously as she took
everything very seriously.”
That Hilton cannot even report correctly
what someone says in her own documentary speaks for itself.
On a minor point, the clause at the end
of Hilton’s above sentence carries an illogical presumption: that because Schulmann strongly supports my general position we
necessarily agree on every single point – though we certainly do on this one.
Summing up: There is good evidence that Einstein borrowed notes from his friend Marcel Grossman prior to his exams in order to catch up with work he missed as a consequence of cutting classes. There is nothing in the Einstein/Marić correspondence, nor (to my knowledge) anything elsewhere in the literature, that indicates that Marić also cut classes.
35. There
is no evidence that Einstein's diploma "grades were rounded up to a
passing mark." SEE NOTES IN DOCUMENTARY REBUTTALS.
The specific NOTES to which Hilton is referring are the those in her response to my listing of errors in her documentary. The notes in question are entirely based on the assertions of her consultant Senta Troemel-Ploetz, who is the source of the claim about Einstein’s grade being rounded up to a supposed pass mark of 5. Treomel-Ploetz provides no evidence that there was such a pass mark in 1900, and John Stachel has searched the ETH (formerly Zurich Polytechnic) archives and reports he has found no such regulation. (On the scale 1-6, with 1 effectively zero mark, Einstein’s overall average grade works out at around a creditable 78%.)
Final summing up:
I shall finish with some remarks on the source of many of Hilton’s contentions, both here and in her documentary. One is Senta Troemel-Ploetz, whose 1990 article “Mileva Einstein-Marić: The Woman Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics” has been widely cited in regard to the collaboration claims. I suggest that readers consult the following articles to get an idea how deeply flawed her article is as a purported work of scholarship:
http://www.esterson.org/Who_Did_Einsteins_Mathematics.htm
http://www.esterson.org/milevamaric.htm (see under subheading “Senta Troemel-Ploetz’s claims”)
In regard to Trbuhović-Gjurić’s
biography of Marić
on which Troemel-Ploetze relies for most of her
contentions: that the Einstein biographer Albrecht Fölsing
description of the book as a
combination of “fictional invention and pseudo-documentation” is accurate is
attested to by my exposing of the many dubious claims she makes. See the two
articles cited immediately above.
It is worth giving just one example here (immediately below) that illustrates both the deeply flawed nature of Trbuhović-Gjurić’s claims, and the corollary that the relevant writings of an academic who uncritically recycles such claims (namely Troemel-Ploetz’s) can scarcely be described as serious scholarship.
The source of a hearsay statement (from an interested party), collected more than fifty years after the occurrence in question, Ljubomir-Bata Dumić, is quoted by Trbuhović-Gjurić (1983, p. 75; 1991, p. 106) as reporting that Einstein said that he has need of his wife as she “solves for me all my mathematical problems”. The idea that Einstein said any such thing (other than in jest) is absurd, but this does not prevent Trbuhović-Gjurić quoting it as evidence, nor Troemel-Ploetz (1990, p. 418) recycling it as if it constituted serious testimony. Even worse is the further quotation in Trbuhović-Gjurić’s book from the same source, Ljubomir-Bata Dumić:
We raised our eyes towards Mileva as
to a divinity, such was her knowledge of mathematics and her genius… Straightforward
mathematical problems she solved in her head, and those which would have taken
specialists several weeks of work she completed in two days… We knew that she
had made [Albert], that she was the creator of his glory. She solved for him all his mathematical problems,
particularly those concerning the theory of relativity. Her brilliance as a
mathematician amazed us. [My translation.]
I leave readers to decide on the reliability of such
reminiscences from a proud fellow-Serb with connections to the Marić family, and of the author who presents such statements as evidence.
That this nonsense is recorded in all seriousness by Trbuhović-Gjurić
is enough to undermine the reliability of the many other statements she
collected in the 1960s (most of which are inherently dubious anyway). That in
her 1990 article Troemel-Ploetz uncritically recycles
such material (though in this instance only the earlier nonsense about Marić’s “doing
all [Einstein’s] mathematical problems”) and presents it as serious evidence
tells us much about her scholarly pretensions. In turn, of course, Geraldine
Hilton has relied upon Troemel-Ploetz for a number of
the statements made in her documentary, and in her responses to my criticisms
she has cited Trbuhović-Gjurić as the source
of some of the key claims about Marić’s alleged scientific collaboration with
Einstein. This speaks for itself.
Conclusion
It should be apparent by now that
the PBS “Einstein’s Wife” website is so permeated with falsehoods and
misleading contentions that it is irredeemably flawed. The same must be said
about Geraldine Hilton’s documentary Einstein’s
Wife.
PBS must face up to the fact that
they made a serious error in not having the documentary (and the associated PBS
website material) examined by scholars knowledgeable about both the historical
facts and the science before they decided to sponsor it. It should be only too
apparent by now that the only way they can act with integrity in this matter is
to withdraw both their sponsorship of the documentary and their “Einstein’s
Wife” website.
December 2006