Mileva Marić

Life & Legacy

Mileva Marić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милева Марић, pronounced [milěːva mǎːritɕ]; 19 December 1875 – 4 August 1948), sometimes called Mileva Marić-Einstein (Милева Марић-Ајнштајн, Mileva Marić-Ajnštajn), was a Serbian mathematician. She was also the first wife of Albert Einstein from 1903 to 1919. She was the only woman among Einstein's fellow students at Zurich Polytechnic. Marić and Einstein were study colleagues and lovers, and had a daughter Lieserl in 1902, who likely died of scarlet fever at one and a half years old. They later had two sons, Hans Albert and Eduard. The question of whether she contributed to Einstein's early work (in particular the annus mirabilis papers) has been debated.