Einstein’s Wife. The Real Story of Mileva Einstein-Maric, Allen Chesterton & David Cassidy (ISBN 9780262538978, MIT Press)

I read about this book in the paper when it came out in 2020 but didn’t buy it immediately. Then, not so long ago I decided to buy and read the Einstein biography by Walter Isaacson and I also got this book about Mileva Maric which I read first. Mileva Maric, Einstein’s first wife was forgotten by history for a long time until new letters between her and Einstein from their student days were discovered in 1986. Some claimed that Maric made key contributions to Einstein’s papers from 1905, even going so far as to state that she did all the math for his special relativity paper because it was too difficult for Einstein. The book has 2 authors and each wrote 1 part of the book. David Cassidy wrote the first part of the book (about 40% of the book) which is a short 100 page biography of Mileva Maric. I quite enjoyed this first part and got to know Mileva Maric at least a little bit. Like other women pursuing a scientific career at the time (Marie Curie, Lise Meitner) she wasn’t exactly encouraged to do so to put it mildly. The marriage between Einstein and Maric soon became an unhappy one and they finally got divorced in 1919 after having separated in 1914. Maric was never able to pursue her scientific ambitions, probably partly because of the prejudice against women at the time and partly because of giving birth to an out-of-wedlock child while still studying at the ETH. The second part and remainder of the book was written by Allen Chesterton and reviews the various claims that have been made about the contribution Maric made to the work of Einstein. Apparently the book has received negative criticism with some critics even accusing the authors of misogyny. After reading the book I can only place such criticism as the result of emotional disappointment about the fact that the author could not find any supporting evidence to substantiate the claim that Maric’ made important contributions to Einstein’s papers in 1905 and even worked out the mathematics for the special relativity paper because this was supposedly too difficult for Einstein. The problem with this last point is that the mathematics of special relativity is not that difficult, the ideas behind it are difficult and were revolutionary at the time. If Einstein truly was not capable to handle the mathematics necessary for special relativity then the same was likely true for his other papers in 1905. And it is impossible to imagine how he ever got to general relativity which is on a whole different level of mathematical difficulty compared to special relativity. By making such ‘outlandish’ claims the champions of the Mileva Maric story achieve the opposite of what they set out to do and stand in the way of giving Mileva Maric her place in history she truly deserves. I found the second part a bit too dry and too long but enjoyed the first part. I am glad to have read it and learned about Mileva Maric, a woman to be remembered and learnt about in school as a role model, so that women today can more freely pursue their career ambitions whatever they are. If the world is a global village then there are still way too many streets in our village where women have far less freedom than men while misogynistic pigs like Andrew Tate are allowed to poison the minds of our youth on social media.