Mileva Einstein – The Genius Behind the Genius

The story of Mileva Marić is controversial and still relevant today. She was a woman, a mother, a scientist, and a wife. What particularly intrigues us is her unexplored contribution to science and Einstein’s work, considering it was a collaboration between two geniuses. Her role in the scientific world was completely diminished, and Mileva was reduced to the role of a housewife and mother, who, after divorcing Einstein, lived in extreme poverty, feeding her children in soup kitchens and barely making ends meet.

But who is the Serbian woman who married Albert, and how did he even come into her life?

Mileva Marić was born into a wealthy family in Titel, Vojvodina (then part of Austria-Hungary), as the oldest of three children in a family of an Austro-Hungarian army officer. In 1886, Mileva enrolled in a girls' high school in Novi Sad, and in 1888, she transferred to a high school in Sremska Mitrovica, where she graduated in 1890 as the top of her class in mathematics and physics. From 1890, she attended the Royal Serbian School in Šabac. When she moved to Zagreb, she received special permission to attend a school that was only for boys.

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Studies in Zurich and meeting Einstein

In the summer of 1896, Mileva enrolled in medical studies at the University of Zurich. In October, she transferred to the State Polytechnic School to study mathematics and physics. She was only the fifth woman to be accepted into this school. One of her classmates in physics lectures was Albert Einstein, who was then 17 years old. The first two years of her studies were very successful for Mileva. She spent one semester in Heidelberg, during which she corresponded with Albert, who wrote to her that he missed her. She returned to Zurich in 1899, and their relationship flourished.

Despite the promising start to her studies, Mileva's success began to decline. In the summer of 1900, she failed her final exams. Although both Mileva's and Albert's averages were lower than the required 5.0, Albert's average of 4.9 was rounded up to 5.0, while Mileva’s 4.0 was largely due to a low score of 2.5 in the theory of functions. Einstein graduated and went home for the holidays. Mileva stayed in Zurich, working as a laboratory assistant and preparing to retake the exams. Mileva and Albert met again at Lake Como. A few weeks later, Mileva discovered that she was pregnant, and in July 1901, she failed the exams again. That autumn, Einstein got a poorly paid substitute teaching job in Schaffhausen.

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Love or Theory of Relativity?

Albert and Mileva married in Bern in 1903. They had three children: Liserl, Hans Albert, and Eduard. According to Wikipedia, the crisis in their marriage began with their move first to Prague and then to Berlin. Einstein, by then a more successful and famous scientist (celebrity), sought more excitement than family life could offer, so he stayed with his lover Elsa, and asked Mileva for a divorce. They officially divorced in 1919, and Mileva lived with the children in Bern. Albert Einstein's work is considered one of the most influential in the field of science. Known for his formula E=mc² from 1905, the general theory of relativity from 1915, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, and the discovery of the photoelectric effect. What we know today is that he transferred the entire amount of the Nobel Prize to Mileva's account. Interestingly, the wider public knew nothing about Mileva until 1986, when one of Einstein's descendants published letters mentioning her.

While caring for her sick son Eduard, Mileva herself became ill and died in Zurich in 1948. She was buried at the Nordheim Cemetery in Zurich. Her grave remained largely unknown until 2003, thanks to Petar Stojanović, the founder of the Nikola Tesla Memorial Center in St. Gallen. Her grave has no plaque, and her remains lie alongside those of several other people. There is an initiative to exhume her remains and give her a dignified burial.

Today, Mileva Marić stands as one of the first women who, through her education, opposed the patriarchal system, and through her divorce from a globally renowned genius, opened doors for feminism and female independence.

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