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This Tesla Society article is one of many websites claiming that some scientific discoveries attributed to Albert Einstein were in part or in full done by his first wife, Mileva Marić.

There is more and more evidence that Mileva Einstein Maric (Einstein's wife) is the coauthor of "The Theory of Relativity".

There is evidence to support this idea, including:

  • an apparent listing of her name on a draft.
  • Some letters between Einstein and his wife, Mileva, appear to be missing.
  • Einstein did not publish anything major after those initial papers written during the time he was with his first wife.
  • Einstein gave his Nobel prize's money to his wife during their divorce.
  • Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2 was discovered by Olinto De Pretto and this was never acknowledged in Einstein's work.
  • There is other evidence of their collaboration.

Was the Theory of Relativity co-authored by Marić?

DJClayworth
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    Let's tidy up the claim here to be less 'fraud' and 'stain on integrity' which are opinion-based and more 'wife was coauthor' like the quoted site. – Oddthinking May 21 '17 at 22:47
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    When someone publishes a scientific paper and does not acknowledge others that is seen as a lack of integrity; and if Albert took his wife's work as his own that constitutes fraud. –  May 21 '17 at 23:21
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    Let's not debate that. Let's focus the question on the facts. – Oddthinking May 21 '17 at 23:24
  • I don't think the issue is only about the theory of relativity, but also about taking the work of others as his own without giving proper credit. Though I understand that narrowing the scope of the question makes it easier to get a proper answer. Einstein's discoveries were made **only** while he was married which I believe is relevant. –  May 21 '17 at 23:49
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    Which theory of relativity (general or special)? And, Einstein got his Nobel for the photoelectric effect, NOT relativity. – hdhondt May 21 '17 at 23:54
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    @hdhondt: Based on the dates, Special. His papers on the General Theory of Relativity were published after he had separated from his first wife. – Oddthinking May 22 '17 at 00:07
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    Tesla was a General-Relativity denier until his death. – Sklivvz May 22 '17 at 00:28
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    "Einstein did not publish anything major after those initial papers" - yeah, only his most cited paper "Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?" His wife, in turn, didn't publish anything at all, and there's absolutely zero proof she even tried anything independently. – sashkello May 22 '17 at 00:50
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    "Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2 was discovered by Olinto De Pretto." - irrelevant to the question, should be removed. – sashkello May 22 '17 at 00:50
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    And E=mc^2 was circulated quite a bit before SR. Einstein's contribution is not the equation, but its implications which lead to the whole new view of the world. That's not some well-kept secret, it's all on Wikipedia. – sashkello May 22 '17 at 01:00
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    "an apparent listing of her name on a draft" = 1 guy claiming that the first draft had an extra name which is a "variant" of his 1st wife's maiden name. – Jordy May 22 '17 at 06:23
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    A paper is co-authored by someone if that someone is listed as co-author. What qualifies "being an *unlisted* but de-facto co-author" in your eyes? There's a wide range from "contributing significant insight" over "having some ideas bounced off you" over "doing proof-reading" to "bringing coffee and keeping you focussed on your work". – DevSolar May 22 '17 at 08:10
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    It seems that there are many claims made in this question. The claim that there's a listing of Mileva's name on a draft seems interesting. How about focusing this question on that claim? – Christian May 22 '17 at 09:49
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    The point about De Pretto is absurd. De Pretto hypothesized that there might be some kind of mass-energy equivalence based on a bogus theory and gave the simplest dimensionally consistent relationship between them as a guess. Einstein *derived* the relationship from a (seemingly) correct theoretical framework. The [full form of what he derived](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93momentum_relation) includes an extra momentum term - it only simplifies to E=mc^2 if there is no momentum. Thus, Einstein derived something more general and not the same as De Pretto in any case. – KAI May 22 '17 at 16:08
  • The [article](https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/nov/11/rorycarroll) says that "Einstein allegedly used De Pretto's insight in a major paper published in 1905, but De Pretto was never acclaimed". I think that what this implies is that Einstein built on someone's work and didn't acknowledge that fact. The article also mentions Hilbert, and in [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute#General_relativity) one can find a list of events concerning Einstein and Hilbert, but when Einstein published his paper, Hilbert was not acknowledged. Should he have done so? –  May 23 '17 at 12:27
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    "some letters appear to be missing" - seems like a vague, impossible to prove or disprove claim. Also, he published a lot of important works after he and his first wife separated and divorced. – PoloHoleSet May 24 '17 at 14:47
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    @Daniel, no, generally not. If a statement was rigorously proved and published, you would cite that publication. However, De Pretto, while publishing works, did not rigorously prove the mass-energy equivalence. He seemed to have a vague idea of it, and so did many others around that time. If I claim black holes exist, before any proof of them and/or any theoretical framework, simply because I postulate something can exist that sucks in light... I certainly don't expect to be cited for that vague and unproven claim. – Jarrod Christman May 24 '17 at 19:42
  • Woah that Guardian article is really bad and has no idea whereof it is speaking. E=mc² is not even important nor is it a starting point. Just something that is a direct consequence of keeping the mathematics consistent. It is, however, an eye-opener after the fact: positing the speed of light as a constant means mass at rest has some massive hidden energy content. – David Tonhofer Nov 25 '20 at 20:33

1 Answers1

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There's low probability that Marić made a significant contribution to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, let alone that she co-authored it with him.

From Einstein from 'B' to 'Z' by John Stachel:

In summary, the letters to Marić show Einstein referring to his studies, his ideas, his work on the electrodynamics of moving bodies over a dozen times (and we may add a couple more if we include his letter to Grossmann), as compared to one reference to our work on the problem of relative motion. In the one case where we have a letter of Marić in direct response to one of Einstein's, where it would have been most natural for her to respond to his ideas on the electrodynamics of moving bodies, we find the same response to ideas in physics that we find in all her letters: silence. This proves nothing, as I emphasized in my paper, but it certainly must influence our estimate of the probability that Marić made a significant contribution.

Pg. 36 - Google Books

(the "as compared to one reference to our work on the problem of relative motion" refers to what The Forgotten Life of Einstein's First Wife article you linked to put a lot of emphasis on)

Further down the page, Stachel also notes:

In her case, we have no published papers; no letters with a serious scientific content, either to Einstein nor to anyone else; nor any other objective evidence of her supposed creative talents. We do not even have hearsay accounts of conversations she had with anyone else that have a specific, scientific content, let alone a content claiming to report her ideas.

Of course, as Stachel himself noted, this does not prove anything and indeed absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, making this very difficult or even impossible to conclusively prove.

Edit: I'll also try to address the Nobel Prize money argument. According to one source, Einstein's original intent was clearly to support their children rather than to provide some sort of compensation to Mileva herself:

The draft of the divorce agreement stated: “Disposal of the interest would be left entirely to your discretion. The capital would be deposited in Switzerland and placed in safe-keeping for the children.”

As reworded by Mileva’s lawyer, in the divorce decree the phrase “placed in safe-keeping for the children” became “In the case of the remarriage or death of Mrs. Einstein [the capital] shall go to the children.” Even if the practical consequences hardly changed – due to the fact that Mileva “shall have no authority over the capital without the consent of Prof. Einstein” - Albert’s clear statement of intent regarding the children’s heritage was swept under the rug. Yet happy to escape prolonged negotiations, in order to end an unfortunate marriage, Albert may not even have realized the difference.

Also, as noted in the comments, Einstein never won a Nobel Prize for the theory of relativity, but for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

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