Is it true that Einstein appropriated the intellectual merits of his first wife?

There is a version according to which the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein worked on the theory of relativity not alone, but in collaboration with his first wife Mileva Maric. And allegedly, during publication, her name disappeared, and Einstein himself appropriated his wife’s intellectual heritage and passed it off entirely as his own. We checked if this is true.

That's what wrote about this in the magazine Spletnik.ru in 2011:

“Christopher Bjerkness, in his book Albert Einstein, the Incorrigible Plagiarist (2002), says: “It is clear that Albert Einstein was not the sole author of the 1905 manuscript on the principles of relativity. His wife Mileva Maric may have been a co-author or sole author of the work. Although the work was presented at the beginning as either a co-authorship between Mileva Einstein-Maric and Albert Einstein, or as a work Mileva Einstein-Maric, Albert’s name was the only one under which the work was eventually published. Mileva and Albert had previously been co-authors of scientific papers, and Albert then highly valued Mileva’s collaboration.”

Albert Einstein was married twice. The first time was on a woman who had an education in physics and mathematics. This woman's name was Mileva Maric. 

She was born in Serbia, and later entered the Zurich Polytechnic with Einstein, ending up in the same course with him. The young people met and began a relationship. In 1903 they got married. And in 1905 Einstein published in the journal “Annals of Physics” the article “On the electrodynamics of moving bodies”, and with it the theory of relativity began.

It is impossible to say exactly when exactly the idea appeared that Mileva Maric took part in the creation of this work. Apparently this statement contributed to its popularity start recruited after the collected works of Albert Einstein were published in 1987. One of the volumes contained his previously unknown correspondence with Maric.

The publication of this correspondence generated interest in Einstein's first wife. She was the center of attention biography, published in 1969. Its author, Serbian researcher Desanka Trbuhovic-Djuric, described in detail the life story of Mileva Maric. However, quite often her statements were not supported by any sources or evidence. For example, the biography said that Maric was a brilliant mathematician and even surpassed Einstein in this discipline. Moreover, the author of the biography claimed that Marić assisted Einstein in writing his papers on the theory of relativity and was the unnamed author of a paper published in 1905. In both cases, the author of the biography did not provide specific references to sources.

The theory that Einstein stole his ideas from Maric is largely became based precisely on this biography. In 1990, during a scientific conference, several scientists circulated Trbuhović-Djurić's version, citing a biography she had written, and shared it with an English-speaking audience. At the same time, the biography itself was not translated into English at that time, and the speakers had not previously studied Einstein. But in the wake of feminism, the theory gained popularity and began to spread among the masses.

It later turned out that Trbukhovich-Djuric herself referred in her work to the words of the Soviet physicist Abram Fedorovich Ioffe. Allegedly, he saw the manuscript of Einstein's paper on the theory of relativity, published in 1905, and on it were the names of both Einstein and Maric. When Trbuhovic-Djuric was later interviewed about this, she stated, which relied on Joffe’s published memoirs (the source was not indicated in the biography itself).

It was about article Ioffe from 1955, dedicated to the memory of Albert Einstein, published in the journal “Advances in Physical Sciences” and reprinted in memoirs. But there is no indication that Joffe saw any manuscript before publication. The Soviet academic writes that the author of the 1905 article was an unknown person named Einstein-Mariti (a variant spelling of Marich), and adds: Mariti is the wife’s maiden name, and according to Swiss custom it is added to the husband’s surname.

The tradition to which the Soviet academician referred does not exist, and he refers to it erroneously. Nevertheless, Trbukhovich-Djuric considered the fact of combining two surnames to be sufficient to assume that the article was co-authored.

The second argument to which come running supporters of the version that Marich took part in Einstein’s work is based on the fact that the physicist himself allegedly wrote in letters to her about his work “ours.” We are talking about a letter dated March 1901, in which Einstein writes:

“I assure you, no one here will dare or want to say anything bad about you. How happy and proud I will be when we both successfully complete our work on the relativity of motion together!”

In this letter, Einstein assures Maric of his love and reassures her, telling her not to worry about the bad attitude towards her from his friends and relatives. However, in the rest In his letters, when speaking about his work in physics research (and they discussed this more than once), Einstein uses the pronouns “I” and “my”, including when talking about the theory of relativity. In the same way, in his response letters, Maric writes about these ideas “you” and “yours”. In addition, researchers of Einstein's legacy note that in the correspondence between him and Maric there is practically no discussion of the very ideas about physics or the nature of relativity. Perhaps Einstein once used the word “our” in a fit of emotion, or perhaps he was referring to Maric’s thesis, which she wrote on a similar topic (but did not submit).

Besides, No there is no evidence that Maric was a talented physicist or mathematician. Although she and Einstein studied together, Maric was unable to pass the final exams and defend her diploma. Nothing is known about her scientific works (or attempts to publish them: given her position as a woman, this could not be easy). 

Maric herself never claimed to be the author of Einstein's theory of relativity. Although supporters of this idea lead As an argument, the fact is that Einstein transferred the money from the Nobel Prize to his first wife according to a pre-agreed agreement between them. However, Maric herself, who after the divorce was left alone with her children (one of whom suffered from schizophrenia), lived in cramped circumstances, and the transfer of money could be explained by the simple need to support the children from her first marriage.

Thus, there is no sufficient evidence that Maric was in any way involved in the creation of the theory of relativity. Therefore, Einstein's accusations of plagiarism are unfounded.

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Does Einstein's First Wife Deserve Some Credit for His Work? That's the Wrong Question to Ask
2. Einstein biographer doubts the existence of a co-author of the theory of relativity
3. Did Albert Einstein Steal The Theory Of Relativity From His Wife?
4. The debated legacy of Einstein's first wife