Science Secrets

by Alberto A. Martinez

  She began college in the same year as Einstein, in 1896, and she too studied physics and mathematics to try to earn a teaching degree. They sometimes studied together, and in particular, read together works in physics that Einstein had read previously.10 Although she was more than three years older than him, Einstein regarded her as “my student.”11 When they each had to write their diploma projects, Einstein chose his own topic (contrary to standard practice), and he also chose one for Marić.12 One of her friends noted that they “devised their topics together, but Mr. Einstein relinquished the nicer one to Miss Marić.”13 But still, the final examinations were difficult, and Marić failed them. She retook the exams, but again did not pass. A major complication was that Marić became pregnant by Einstein in 1901. Another difficulty was that she had several arguments with her supervising professor.14 She then ended her efforts to obtain the teaching degree. Letters also show that she chose to abandon her efforts to do a PhD thesis.15

  Still unmarried, Marić gave birth to their daughter in 1902. They kept it a secret, and their daughter then disappears from the historical record. The build-up to those events seems to have changed Marić's focus from academic aspirations to familial concerns and occupations. At the time, she wrote to an intimate friend: “I believe that human happiness is more satisfying than any other success.”16

  Regardless, one writer, Dord Krstić, later claimed: “From the spring of 1898 until the fall of 1911, Mileva worked daily at the same table with Albert—quietly, modestly, and never in public view.”17 But this is a charitable speculation. Krstić never met Einstein or Marić, and he wrote nearly ninety years after the events in question. From mid-1900 until late 1902, they lived mostly in different cities, even in different countries. Plainly, the two could not work “daily at the same table” because they were not always in the same place. Moreover, there is no evidence that they regularly worked together on physics once they reunited in Bern. Regardless, Krstić claimed: “Almost simultaneously, Marić Curie opened the door into the world of radiophysics and radiochemistry and Mileva Einstein bravely began to explore the secrets of quantum and relativity—the fields that even today we call modern physics.”18 Here, as in the tales about Pythagoras, fact and speculation mix.

  Consider another charitable speculation. One of the leading historians in researching the lives of Einstein and Marić is Robert Schulmann. He was interviewed for the program Einstein's Wife, in which he commented, “It is very conceivable that Mileva had input on the paper on capillarity. That of course has nothing to do with special relativity. But, I think it's fair enough to say that Mileva contributed—could have conceivably contributed, to that very first paper of his.” The article on capillarity was Einstein's first scientific paper, completed in December 1900. Schulmann's comment might give the impression that Marić did collaborate on that scientific work. But notice the words. Schulmann, very properly, used the word “conceivable.” Yes, we can imagine that Marić contributed to that paper, she well could have, but did she? Actually, we have Marić's own words on the matter. In a letter to her intimate friend, Helene Savić, she wrote: “This is not just an everyday paper, but a very significant one, it deals with the theory of liquids. We sent also a private copy to Boltzmann, and would like to know what he thinks about it; let's hope he is going to write to us.”19 The last words are suggestive, as if she were the coauthor indeed. But I quoted the passage without its initial sentences. Those sentences specify who actually wrote the paper: “Albert has written a paper in physics that will probably be published very soon in the physics Annalen. You can imagine how proud I am of my darling. This is not just an everyday paper…” Why then did Marić hope for the physicist's reply “to us”? Maybe she was Einstein's secret collaborator—or maybe she just penned the copy of the paper, or maybe she just mailed it,—we don't know. We do know that she proudly acknowledged Einstein's authorship.

  In 1901, Marić again bragged to her friend: “Albert has written a magnificent study, which he has submitted as his dissertation. He will probably get his doctorate in a few months. I read it with great joy and real admiration for my little sweetheart who has such a good head on his shoulders. I'll send you a copy when it gets printed. It deals with the investigation of the molecular forces in gases using various phenomena. He is really a splendid fellow.”20

  Still, did Marić play any scientific role once she and Einstein lived together? It is well-known that in 1902 Einstein and two friends, Moritz Solovine and Conrad Habicht, started a discussion group that they jokingly called “the Olympia Academy.” Their readings and discussions influenced Einstein's physics. Some writers claim that Marić, too, was an active participant. For example, in Einstein's Wife, the narrator claimed, “Maurice Solovine writes: Mileva would sit in the corner during our meetings listening attentively. She occasionally joined in. I found her reserved, but intelligent, and clearly more interested in physics than in housework.” Where did the producers get this information? It echoes the novelized book Einstein in Love (2000), in which Dennis Overbye, who never met Einstein or Marić, wrote, “Marriage had made Mileva a de facto member of the Olympia Academy, and Solovine later recalled her sitting quietly in the corner during the meetings at their apartment, following the arguments but rarely contributing. He found her reserved but intelligent, and clearly more interested in physics than in housework.”21 Since Einstein and Marić lived together, one might readily imagine that Mileva now participated in the discussion group. While Solovine warmly appreciated Marić, he actually reported that once Einstein married her, “That event did not effect any change in our meetings. Mileva, intelligent and reserved, listened to us attentively, but never intervened in our discussions.”22 Compare this original passage to the derivative accounts. Solovine did not write that Marić “occasionally” or “rarely” contributed, nor even that she was “clearly more interested in physics than in housework.” Instead, there is no documentary evidence that she was an active participant, and in none of their correspondence does Marić appear as a “member” of the academy, not even in her own letters to intimate friends.

  Einstein had lively discussions with Solovine and Habicht, to the extent that neighbors complained. He also discussed his research extensively with his friend Michele Besso, whose help he acknowledged in his first paper on relativity. What about discussions with Marić? We find in the extant letters, that wherever Einstein raised a scientific argument, Marić did not reply to that, but focused instead on everyday personal topics. Philipp Frank, a friend who interviewed Einstein, noted that Marić “was taciturn and reticent,” but that “Einstein in his zeal for his studies hardly noticed it.” And, “When he [Einstein] wanted to tell her, as a fellow specialist, his ideas, which overflowed from him, her reaction was so scant and faint, that often he just did not know whether she was interested or not.”23

  Proponents of Marić have staked their case on alleged evidence from a presumed witness. Marić's unauthorized biographer, Desanka Trbuhović-Gjurić, who never met or corresponded with Marić, felt a great kinship toward her because they were both Serbian. In 1969, Trbuhović-Gjurić claimed that the Russian physicist Abram Joffe, whom she also never met, once pointed out (in his 1955 article titled “In Remembrance of Albert Einstein”) that the 1905 papers were originally signed “Einstein-Marić.”24 In 1991, writer Evan Harris Walker came to a similar conclusion, translating Joffe's article about Einstein's 1905 papers in this way: “Their author was Einstein-Mariti.”25 Furthermore, in 1999, Michele Zackheim claimed that “Joffe, a Russian scientist, wrote in Meetings with Physicists: My Reminiscences of Foreign Physicists, that three original manuscripts, including the one describing the Special Theory of Relativity, were signed ‘Einstein-Marity.’”26 Then, in 2003, the claim that Joffe cited Marić's name on the 1905 manuscripts was broadcast in the documentary Einstein's Wife, and its website boasted, “there is at least one printed report in which Joffe declared that he personally saw the names of two authors on the 1905 papers: Ei
nstein and Marity.”27 The list of people who echo such claims goes on and on.

  Joffe was a reputable physicist who later knew Einstein and even met Marić at least once.28 In his book Meetings with Physicists, Joffe claimed nothing about how the 1905 manuscripts were signed, and he did not even claim to have ever seen them. Thus the claim by Zackheim and others is just false. As for Joffe's brief article “In Remembrance of Albert Einstein,” it was an obituary for Einstein published in the top Russian journal on physics. Literally translated, without changing the order of words, the relevant passage reads: “In the year 1905, in Annals of Physics, there appeared three articles, thereupon beginning three most important, relevant directions in the physics of the 20th century. Those were: the theory of Brownian motion, the photon theory of light and the theory of relativity. Their author—unknown until that time, a bureaucrat at the Patent Office in Bern, Einstein-Marity (Marity—the last name of his wife, which by Swiss custom is added to the last name of the husband).”29 So Walker's translation: “Their author was ‘Einstein-Mariti'.” is a gross misrepresentation. Likewise, other writers stretch and twist Joffe's words to make provocative claims. They read much between the lines. Joffe's plain words say that the author was just one person, a male employee at the Swiss patent office, onto whose name Joffe added the spouse's name.

  Still, proponents of Marić have tried to make something out of the fact that Joffe happened to write “Marity.” For example, Walker claimed that Joffe must have seen a manuscript bearing the name Marity, for otherwise he would not have known that alternative spelling because it “apparently is not found in any of the Einstein biographies.”30 But Walker was wrong; that name appears, for example, in a very popular biography of Einstein published in 1954.31 Also, when Joffe first tried to visit Einstein at his home in Switzerland, he happened to meet Marić, who then used the name Einstein-Marity. (In Switzerland in the early 1900s, some spouses, male and female, did use joint names.32) It is odd that decades later Joffe once happened to refer to Einstein by the compound name, but that small oddity does not mean that Joffe ascribed authorship to Marić.

  Joffe did not claim that Marić wrote or collaborated in any scientific papers. He did not claim that her name was on the 1905 manuscripts, nor that he ever saw any such manuscripts. In multiple places throughout his career, Joffe acknowledged Einstein for having authored the famous works of 1905. Yet the producers of Einstein's Wife and the companion website pictured a fragment of a page, purportedly by Joffe, which reads that the articles were “signed Einstein-Marity.” That was a mistake; the page pictured was really from a popular science book from 1962 by a Russian writer who did not claim to have ever seen the original manuscripts nor to have known anyone who had.33 The claims regarding Joffe dissolve into nothing.

  Another apparent witness was the first son of Marić and Einstein. Hans Albert Einstein was interviewed by a few authors and historians who asked him about his mother, yet he did not claim that she was Einstein's secret coworker. But then in 1962, for two days, Peter Michelmore, who had never met Einstein or Marić, interviewed Hans Albert Einstein to gather information for a brief biography of Einstein. In the resulting booklet, Michelmore wrote that once Marić fell in love with Einstein, by their final year of college, “Her personal ambition had faded.” Yet Michelmore briefly noted that later, while Einstein struggled to solve puzzles of relative motion in electrodynamics, “Mileva helped him solve certain mathematical problems, but nobody could assist with the creative work, the flow of fresh ideas.” Did Einstein's son say that? We do not know. We do not know for certain what parts of what Michelmore published were voiced by Hans Albert. The author admitted that Hans Albert did not see or proofread the manuscript for the book: “he answered all my questions, and waited while I wrote down the answers. He did not ask to check my notes, or edit my book. He trusted me. It was the sort of naïveté his father had. Thank God for all naïve people, and I use the word in its noblest sense.”34 Unfortunately, when interviewers' accounts remain unchecked, inaccuracies increase.

  Alongside some verifiable statements, Michelmore's book also includes incorrect information. For example, he mentioned that while Einstein studied in Zurich, he befriended “Maurice Solovine, a Frenchman taking the physics course”.35 In fact, Moritz Solovine was Romanian, born and educated in Romania, until he moved, not to Zurich, but to Bern, where he met and befriended Einstein in 1902, almost two years after Einstein had graduated in Zurich. Such errors diminish the credibility of an author's words. Consequently, John Stachel, editor of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, inquired whether Michelmore's family happened to possess Michelmore's notes from the interview with Hans Albert. No such luck; lacking such notes, we don't know precisely what Hans Albert told Michelmore.

  Faced with such ambiguities, each historian must decide what to do with hearsay in a historical reconstruction. In my book on the history of relativity, I chose to incorporate Michelmore's words about Marić. But I hope that readers will realize that the sentence in question is not a photograph of actual events. It is but a passing claim that appears in a popular biography written by an author who only interviewed a son of the individuals in question, a biography which was not proofread by those individuals, nor even by the interviewee. It was written and published almost sixty years after the event in question. Moreover, Hans Albert could not possibly have witnessed such an event, since he was only a one-year-old baby in spring 1905. Hence, if he did actually speak such words in 1962, he was merely voicing a conjecture or echoing words voiced by someone else. The point is to distinguish between late indirect claims and evidence from early sources.

  Seldom do we try to articulate, systematically, the extent to which different sources warrant different degrees of credibility. Therefore, it seems useful to illustrate such differences. Historians sometimes disagree on how much weight to attribute to any one document, but I can at least sketch my own outlook in the accompanying table, which describes some of the different kinds of information that may exist pertaining to the genesis of a scientific work. To distinguish them, I have ranked them in order of proximity to the historical event, the instance of scientific creativity. The greater the number of an item, the less credibility I tend to ascribe to it as a likely source of precise information about that moment in time. The list is not exhaustive; my aim is only to distinguish among some different kinds of information. The line following item 5 sets a boundary between evidence generated during the production of the scientific work and various kinds of hindsight and conjecture.

  In this hierarchy, the biography written by Michelmore falls on level 18. In contradistinction, a letter by Einstein to his friend Conrad Habicht, written in May 1905, while he was drafting the paper on relativity, counts as evidence of level 4; because he alluded to his work without describing it in detail (which would raise it to level 3). That letter, which historians cite often, is a precious though narrow window to the creative moment. Thus there are many different kinds of information to which we ascribe various degrees of reliability.

  As another example, in 1922, Einstein delivered a lecture in Kyoto, Japan, titled “How I Created the Theory of Relativity.” He delivered it in German without having written it down, and as he spoke, it was translated into Japanese. The translator kept notes that were soon published in Japanese. In the hierarchy listed in the table, I would rank this Japanese rendition as being on level 13. It is “doubly indirect” in the sense that Einstein did not write it, and that we only have the version in Japanese. It is not a very late document in Einstein's life, so we may imagine that forgetfulness perhaps did not distort it very much. But still, the transcript was not proofread by Einstein.

  This effort to distinguish among various levels of reliability helps to add perspective to a document. It is especially sobering to try to carry out this sort of exercise to evaluate the credibility of ancient sources in the history of science and mathematics. For example, what reliability might we ascribe to Plutarch's comments on
Pythagoras, written almost a thousand years after Pythagoras had died? It compels us to write in ways that acknowledge uncertainties rather than to pretend that the extant evidence faithfully echoes the distant past. But at least for more recent historical events we can say some very definite things.

  Fortunately, several documents do shed light on Mileva Marić around 1905. For example, Krstić provided this translation of a letter from Marić to her friend Helene Savić, written soon after the 1905 papers were published: “My husband spends all of his free time at home, often playing with the boy; but…I would like to remark that this, together with his official job, is not the only work he does—he is writing a great number of scientific papers.”36 As usual in her letters to her intimate friend, Marić made no claim of working on science herself, not since she left college. Now notice the ellipsis, the three dots in the quotation above. What did Krstić omit? An uncut and proper translation of the original letter was published later by a grandson of Helene Savić. It reads: “My husband often spends his leisure time at home playing with the little boy, but to give him his due, I must note that it is not his only occupation aside from his official activities; the papers he has written are already mounting quite high.”37 So we see that Krstić deliberately omitted a phrase in which Marić herself further acknowledged Einstein's labors, “to give him his due.” In 1909, when Einstein was receiving much recognition from physicists, Marić similarly wrote to her friend “I am very happy for his success, because he really does deserve it.”38