The story of Mileva Maric: Did Einstein’s first wife contribute to his scientific work?

Abstract

It is currently widely believed that Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Maric, made significant contributions to his scientific work. Numerous publications since 1990 have variously contended that she co-authored his celebrated 1905 papers, did the mathematics for the special relativity paper, or even continued to collaborate with him up to the time of the birth of the couple’s second son in 1910. In this article the author cites the mostly widely disseminated claims and provides evidence that they do not withstand close examination. Citations are given for more detailed refutations of these claims. It is concluded that there is no good evidence that Mileva Maric was Einstein’s secret collaborator.