Author: Ophelia Benson

  • The Superintendent Keeps a Stash of Body Bags

    After the last killing, of Hamda Abu Ghanem, 18, female relatives decided to speak up. Twenty of them.

  • Disbelief Can Be Passionate

    ‘Sometimes it should provoke a great shout: “Stop. You don’t know that. You have no right.”’

  • Stop. You don’t know that.

    Matthew Parris points out that skeptics can and sometimes should be impassioned about it; for instance, when confronted by nonskeptics who are impassioned about that.

    It is the worst who are full of passionate intensity. Look at the evangelical movement in America, and to some extent, now, here. Look at the Religious Right in Israel. Look at fundamentalist Islam. What they share, what drives them, the tiger in their tanks, is an absolute, unshakeable belief in an ever-present divinity, with plans for nations that He communicates to the leaders, or would-be leaders, of nations. They are the very devil, these people, they could wreck our world, and their central belief in God’s plan has to be confronted. Confronted with passion. Confronted because, and on the ground that, it is not true.

    Along with the wrecking our world part – very much along with that. It’s seriously irritating to have one’s world wrecked by people who are passionately and immovably convinced of childish bullshit. If you’re going to wreck our world at least do it for a better reason than that!

    Disbelief can be passionate. Sometimes it should be. Agnosticism can be passionate. A sense that we lack certitude, lack evidence, lack the external command of any luminous guiding truth, may not always lead to lassitude, complaisance or a modest silence. Sometimes it should provoke a great shout: “Stop. You don’t know that. You have no right.”

    Eg-zactly. I’ve been thinking about that lately; writing a few notes about it. That’s because there’s this Center for Inquiry ‘Beyond Belief’ shindig in July, at which I’m supposed to say some words, so I’ve been thinking about what kind of words to say; I’m planning to say words along those lines. I like those lines. ‘Stop. You don’t know that. You have no right.’

    Many people of course think they do have the right; many of those people think that it is the unbelievers who have no right. Many people just know – what they don’t and can’t know, but that doesn’t stop them. Many people just know what they don’t and can’t know, and consider people who say ‘You don’t know that’ arrogant and dogmatic. That’s why we need some passion and energy in order to go on explaining that that’s not how it should go.

  • Jesus and Mo Demonstrate Against Secularists

    Their lack of deference is oppressive.

  • Jesus and Mo Argue About Nuns

    Nuns are too so useful.

  • Buffoon Enacts Stupid Rambo Fantasy

    Say hello to the banality of evil.

  • Supreme Court Bans Intact D and E Abortions

    Lack of exception for woman’s health not a problem because who knows, maybe it never is one.

  • David Barash on the DNA of Religion

    The era of deference to religious belief is ending as faith is subjected to gimlet-eyed scrutiny.

  • Carlin Romano Remembers Robert Solomon

    The go-to guy in philosophy when it came to emotions, the scholar the encyclopedia editors called first.

  • Basil Fawlty’s Idea of Literature?

    Hating pretentiousness is a bracing sentiment but it jumps easily to mere philistinism.

  • Thought experiment

    Jeremy has a maddeningly interesting thought experiment at Talking Philosophy. It’s interesting partly, I think, because it’s full of holes – if that’s a meaningful thing to say about thought experiments, which perhaps it isn’t, since the terms are whatever the experimenter says they are. And yet – some inspire people to say ‘Yes but’ and others don’t. This one seems to inspire a lot of ‘Yes but’ (although I have to admit that a lot of the ‘Yes but’ting is mine). But it’s also interesting partly because of the issues involved. Quick summary (read the original for the details, it’s not long): imaginary world: harmoniously religious, and happy; no real education; renegade group which educates some children about “a new-fangled way of finding out about things called ‘Science’” so “they’re taught all about scientific procedure (you know, hypotheses, evidence, testing, black swans”. After a few years they go back to their world and try to pass on what they’ve learned but can’t, and they alienate everyone; they miss their old life but can’t return to it; “they live lonely, miserable, friendless lives.” Questions: were they brainwashed? And were they victims of child abuse? And are there any implications for our world?

    Part of what interests me is the fundamental implausibility of the imagined world, especially as portrayed via the children’s nostalgia for it:

    It is a thoroughly and harmoniously religious country (though in fact belief in God is no more rationally justified in this world than it is in our world). People live happily. They sing hymns together. Burn incense. They share the fruits of their labours…The converts’ initial enthusiasm diminishes, and they find themselves longing for the old ways: for the happy singing, the joy of worshipping the God they no long believe to exist, the togetherness engendered by a shared belief.

    I try dutifully to imagine such a world for the purposes of thinking about the thought experiment, but it’s hard, because we’re not like that (and, I suppose, because it seems to give religion the credit for being able to do something that in fact can’t be done, so it makes me twitchy). There is no human group (let alone entire country) that is all happy, all joyous, all blissful togetherness. Some of us are temperamentally too damn fond of apartness for that to work, just for one thing, even before beliefs come into play. But more to the point, there is never that much uniformity and agreement. There are always dissenters, doubters, novelty-peddlers, rebels, askers of questions, jokers, teasers, runaways, stirrers up of trouble.

    Another part of what interests me is the (delayed) revelation that the point of the experiment is not (as I thought it was) the question whether or not social isolation is too high a price to pay for (say) enlightenment, or education, or scientific education, but that scientific education is indoctrination. I dispute that, but to no avail. (Well, say not the struggle naught availeth; I think I’m right, so that will have to do.

    I’m interested in the first question though. I think the answer is much more mixed and patchy than it can be in this experiment. Social isolation is a higher price for some people than it is for others, and enlightenment or education is worth more to some than to others. It is simply an assertion that “they live lonely, miserable, friendless lives” – that is the thought experiment; but in reality, people in such a situation would have a more mixed experience. Some might be lonely and miserable but others might be a little lonely and not miserable and excited about the new mental horizons they’d discovered, and others still might be actually happy. Education can cut people off from others, that’s well known, but it can also unite them with different others, and/or give them other and very satisfying rewards. It’s the same with religious belief – not having it can cut people off from others, but so can having it. It’s never a matter of X plus all good things on one side and Y plus misery on the other (well, almost never). So the experiment is interesting in being irritatingly oversimplified, so that it provokes thought.

  • 2 Mormon Women on Trial for Torturing Children

    Abuse included hitting with rolling pins and nettles, and forcing them to eat red-hot chillies.

  • Student Apologizes for ‘Anti-Islamic Material’

    ‘A collective decision was taken to pursue a course of restorative justice and reconciliation.’

  • Johann Hari on an Imperial Historian

    ‘How should this American Empire exercise its power? One useful tactic, Roberts believes, is massacring civilians.’

  • Andrew Roberts and Johann Hari Disagree

    Hari cites chapter and verse.

  • Norman Levitt on Theodicy for Atheists

    ‘What I tell you three times is true’ but what I tell you forty-two times maybe not.

  • Justice and reconciliation

    Is there something in the water in Cambridge, or what? Is everybody crazy there? Crazy as in stark raving mad?

    A Cambridge University student who sparked a huge row when he published anti- Islamic material has issued a grovelling apology. The 19-year-old second-year Clare College student went into hiding after he printed a cartoon and material satirising religion in college magazine Clareification…A Clare College spokesman said: “Because of the gravity of the situation and the diversity of views expressed about the best way of handling it, the Dean of Students set in train procedures for convening the Court of Discipline. As events unfolded, however, a collective decision was taken to pursue instead a course of restorative justice and reconciliation. The general and the guest editor were both formally reprimanded by the Dean of Students, and were also interviewed by the Master. The guest editor was required to publish an apology, and also to meet any students who asked to see him as well as senior representatives of Cambridge religious communities.”

    The ‘gravity of the situation’? What gravity? What situation? Why was there any need to ‘handle’ it at all? What business did anyone have convening a Court of Discipline when no crime had been committed? (Had it? Please tell me Cambridge doesn’t actually have a law on the books against publishing cartoons. Please, please, please tell me that.) And what on earth makes them think there is any need to pursue ‘a course of restorative justice and reconciliation’? That kind of language is used in contexts of mass murders, years of systematic oppression, torture, war crimes, genocide. It’s not usually wheeled out because someone published a fairly mild cartoon! The imbecilic writer of the article can talk about ‘anti- Islamic material’ but no one is obliged to take that ridiculous phrase at face value.

    A note of apology was distributed to all college members. The college is now arranging a meeting for next term to discuss the problem of maintaining free speech while avoiding offence.

    Oh good. Splendid. That should be one hell of a long meeting. As a commenter at Mediawatchwatch wondered, ‘is that at the same meeting that the head of the Maths Department intends to square a circle?’

    Thanks to Ben Goldacre to alerting me to this one.

  • Who’s depriving?

    We’ve been puzzling over some apparently sweeping language of Martha Nussbaum’s, especially her claim that ‘the type of mutual respect that is required in a pluralistic society…requires (in the public sphere at least) not showing up the claims of religion as damaging, and not adopting a public conception of truth and objectivity according to which such claims are false.’ What does she mean by ‘not adopting a public conception’? Does she mean, narrowly, a public conception for purposes of political deliberation? Or does she mean, broadly, a public conception in the sense of any public statement or writing? It would be charitable to think she meant the former, but on the other hand, it seems to me, if she meant the former she should have used much more careful language.

    But in fact she has a tendency to use tendentious language on this subject; surprisingly tendentious, I think. I was looking through Women and Human Development this morning and was taken aback by some of her wording.

    She concludes an extended criticism of what she calls ‘secular humanist feminism’ by saying (p. 180):

    To strike at religion is thus to risk eviscerating people’s moral, cultural, and artistic, as well as spiritual, lives. Even if substitute forms of expression and activity are available in and through the secular state, a state that deprives citizens of the option to pursue religion has done them a grave wrong…

    To strike at religion? What does she mean ‘strike at’? And what does she mean ‘deprive’? Why does she equate ‘secular humanist feminism’ with a state that deprives citizens of the option to pursue religion? If you think she makes that clear in the book, forget it; she doesn’t. It looks like just pure rhetoric to me, and rather distasteful rhetoric at that, the all too familiar kind that translates disagreement as attack and forthright views as state power. And she goes on doing it.

    When we tell people that they cannot define the ultimate meaning of life in their own way – even if we are sure we are right, and that their way is not a very good way – we do not show full respect for them as persons. In that sense, the secular humanist view is at bottom quite illiberal…[E]ven if a certain group of religious beliefs (or even all beliefs) were nothing more than retrograde superstition, we would not be respecting the autonomy of our fellow citizens if we did not allow them these avenues of inquiry and self-determination.

    There it is again. What does she mean ‘allow’? Who is telling people ‘that they cannot define the ultimate meaning of life in their own way’? What is she talking about? She seems to be taking opinion and discussion to be exactly equivalent to state power and law – but what on earth is she doing that for? A philosopher of all people! Does she take every claim she offers as exactly equivalent to state power? That would be a tad megalomaniacal, surely.

    I don’t like this stuff. I think it’s sinister, and stealthy, and illegitmate. It’s also a peculiar way of attempting to coerce people to shut up by pretending they are trying to coerce people by speaking. That’s a popular move, but I’m surprised to see Nussbaum resorting to it.

  • DIY Justice

    Oh – so if the victims are all morally corrupt, then murder is not murder, or perhaps it is murder but the murderers are not guilty. Interesting jurisprudence.

    Iran’s Supreme Court has acquitted a group of men charged over a series of gruesome killings in 2002…The vigilantes were not guilty because their victims were involved in un-Islamic activities, the court found. The killers said they believed Islam let them spill the blood of anyone engaged in illicit activities if they issued two warnings to the victims.

    Illicit according to whom? Illicit under what and whose definition?

    According to their confessions, the killers put some of their victims in pits and stoned them to death. Others were suffocated. One man was even buried alive while others had their bodies dumped in the desert to be eaten by wild animals. The accused, who were all members of an Islamic paramilitary force, told the court their understanding of the teachings of one Islamic cleric allowed them to kill immoral people if they had ignored two warnings to stop their bad behaviour. But there was no judicial process to determine the guilt of the victims in these cases.

    And even if there had been, would it then be standard procedure to hand the guilty victims over to an Islamic paramilitary force to be tortured to death?

    Now the Supreme Court is reported to have acquitted all the killers of the charge of murder on the grounds that their victims were all morally corrupt.

    Well aren’t we all. So let’s hope this fashion for letting vigilantes murder morally corrupt people does not catch on.

  • Walter Isaacson, Einstein, and Mileva Marić

    In an article in Time magazine in 2006 Walter Isaacson wrote of Albert Einstein: “[In 1905] he had come up with the special theory of relativity… His marriage to Mileva Marić, an intense and brooding Serbian physicist who had helped him with the math of his 1905 paper, had just exploded.”[1]

    As I pointed out at the time[2], Einstein would hardly have needed help with the modest level of mathematics he used in the special relativity paper, the knowledge of which he had already acquired in his middle teens. As Jürgen Renn, an editor of the Albert Einstein Collected Papers, has observed, “If he had needed help with that kind of mathematics, he would have ended there.”[3] I could have added that for someone who had twice failed a diploma to teach physics and mathematics in secondary school, and for whom we have no knowledge of any writings (even in letters) containing ideas on physics beyond her diploma dissertation,[4] the appellation “physicist” to Marić is itself rather dubious, but that’s an issue I have dealt with elsewhere.[5]

    In his book Einstein: His Life and Universe, Isaacson evidently takes the view that as far as the physics was concerned, Marić made no substantive contributions to Einstein’s theories, and played no part in them beyond that of a being a sounding board for his ideas.[6] He reiterated this view in Time magazine: “Well, she helped with the math… But a careful analysis of all their letters and later statements shows that the concepts involved were all his.”[7]

    What I want to deal with in this article is the notion that Marić “helped [Einstein] with the math” in the celebrated 1905 papers. Elsewhere[8] I have refuted the more outlandish claims that Marić “did Einstein’s mathematics”[9], and here I want to focus on the evidence that Isaacson provides for his far more modest contentions.

    Now although Isaacson had earlier in the book shown commendable caution in regard to claims or statements for which he could find no documentary evidence,[10] this meticulous concern for accurate scholarship is less in evidence when he comes to the claims about Marić’s alleged involvement with Einstein’s work. At the end of the chapter in which he provides an excellent account of the background to the 1905 special relativity paper, he adds a section with the subheading “His Partner” in the first paragraph of which he writes that “Einstein was so exhausted when he finished a draft in June that ‘his body buckled and he went to bed for two weeks,’ while Marić ‘checked the article again and again’.”[11]

    Now Isaacson’s source for the latter contention is Peter Michelmore, whose book Einstein: Profile of the Man (1962), as Alberto Martinez notes in his invaluable article on “Handling evidence in history”,[12] “includes incorrect information”. That it is unreliable as a source of information about the early period of Einstein’s career I have demonstrated in more detail elsewhere.[13] (See also below.)

    The next relevant quotation supplied by Isaacson is in the following context (p. 136): “That August [1905], they took a vacation together in Serbia to see her friends and family. While there, Marić was proud and also willing to accept part of the credit. ‘Not long ago we finished a very significant work that will make my husband world famous,’ she told her father, according to stories later recorded there…”

    Isaacson then reports: “Einstein happily praised his wife’s help. ‘I need my wife,’ he told her friends in Serbia. ‘She solves all my mathematical problems for me.’”

    The citations provided by Isaacson for the Einstein quotation here are Overbye (2000) and Trbuhović-Gjurić (1993). However, since Overbye cites Trbuhović-Gjurić, the latter is the single source in question. But note that Overbye is a little more cautious than Isaacson – as well he might be. He writes that Einstein is “reported to have said” the sentences quoted by Isaacson immediately above.

    An examination of the context in which the Einstein quotation is reported by Trbuhović-Gjurić raises strong doubts about its reliability. Her biography of Mileva Marić contains numerous unconfirmable third-hand reports from friends and acquaintances of the Marić family obtained by the author mostly more than half a century after the events they purport to record. (I have demonstrated elsewhere that on issues relevant to this article, Trbuhović-Gjurić’s book is a highly unreliable source of information in general,[14] and it has been described by the Einstein biographer Albrecht Fölsing as a combination of fictional invention and pseudo-documentation.[15]) Trbuhović-Gjurić writes that Einstein made the statement in question to a gathering of friends of Miloš Marić, Mileva’s student brother, at which he was present (presumably in 1905). The information was provided by one Dr Ljubomir-Bata Dumić, who also recalled:

    We raised our eyes towards Mileva as to a divinity, such was her knowledge of mathematics and her genius… Straightforward mathematical problems she solved in her head, and those which would have taken specialists several weeks of work she completed in two days… We knew that she had made [Albert], that she was the creator of his glory. She solved for him all his mathematical problems, particularly those concerning the theory of relativity. Her brilliance as a mathematician amazed us.[16]

    What is evident from such sentiments (e.g., “we knew she had made Albert, she was the creator of his glory… She solved for him all his mathematical problems”) is that what Trbuhović-Gjurić presents as serious information are actually examples of gossip and rumours from credulous friends and acquaintances of the Marić family obtained many decades later. This is illustrated by a statement made to Michele Zackheim by an elderly relative (resident in the Marić family’s hometown, Novi Sad) of the granddaughter of a friend of Marić’s from their student days. He told Zackheim in relation to Marić:

    I remember the stories about her, because he was the most famous man in the world – and of course my family took great pride in her company. We also understood that she helped the professor with his theory. Did you know that Mileva was better in mathematics than her husband? No one can stand to give Mileva her due… Everyone is protecting the great man, the Einstein.[17]

    What this illustrates is that among the people from whom Trbuhović-Gjurić obtained her reports (mostly in the 1960s), proud rumour and gossip about ‘their’ Mileva was rife. (It should be said here that it is not inconceivable that, with his self-deprecating sense of humour, Einstein may at some time have said something along the lines of “my wife does my mathematics”, and that this could be one origin of the rumours passed down through the generations at Novi Sad.)

    Let’s examine more closely the statement that Marić was better at mathematics than Einstein. Although Marić excelled in mathematics at high school, she fared rather less well on the teaching diploma course at Zurich Polytechnic. She had difficulty mastering descriptive and projective geometry for the intermediate diploma examination,[18] and in her final diploma exam she obtained only grade 5 (on a scale 1-12) for the mathematics component, theory of functions, a topic absolutely fundamental to mathematical physics. None of the other four students in the group scored less than 11 in the same component.[19] When she retook the diploma exam the following year she only slightly improved her grade in theory of functions, and failed the exam for a second time.[20] On the other hand, Einstein was precociously gifted at mathematics from an early age.[21] In the same year as the celebrated papers on which he is supposed to have needed help with the mathematics, a report on his Ph.D. thesis from the Zurich University Institute of Physics by Professor Alfred Kleiner commended his ability at mathematics in the following terms:

    The arguments and calculations to be carried out are among the most difficult ones in hydrodynamics, and only a person possessing perspicacity and training in the handling of mathematical and physical problems could dare tackle them.

    Kleiner added that since “the main achievement of Einstein’s thesis consists of the handling of differential equations, and hence is mathematical in character and belongs to the domain of analytical mechanics” he had sought the expert opinion of the head of mathematics, Professor Heinrich Burkhardt, who reported on the most important part of Einstein’s calculations as follows:

    What I checked I found to be correct without exception, and the manner of treatment demonstrates a thorough command of the mathematical methods involved.[22] (Emphasis in original).

    So while we have documented evidence that Einstein was a superb mathematician when he put his mind to it, the only reliable evidence we have about Marić indicates that she did not live up to her early promise in mathematics – the sad fate of many a student who excels at lower levels of the subject.

    In the light of the above, it is difficult to give credence to the first part of another quotation provided by Isaacson (p. 137), citing Peter Michelmore’s Profile of Einstein: “Mileva helped him solve certain mathematical problems, but no one could assist with the creative work, the flow of ideas.”[23] However, given their relative abilities at mathematics it is highly unlikely that Einstein would have required help from Marić in solving mathematical problems. Note also that an examination of the context shows that Michelmore actually makes this statement in relation to Einstein’s working on his special relativity theory, the mathematics in relation to which would have given him no difficulties.

    In the end what we are left with is Isaacson’s conclusion (p. 136) concerning Einstein’s early achievements:

    From all the evidence, Marić was a sounding board, though not as important as [Michele] Besso. She also helped check his math, although there is no evidence that she came up with any of the mathematical concepts.

    In fact the extent to which she was a responsive sounding board for Einstein’s constant flow of ideas after their student years is unknown, whereas we have documented information about the considerable role played by Besso. In addition to the intense discussions they held during the time they both worked at the patent office in Bern (Einstein acknowledged his indebtedness to Besso’s “many a valuable suggestion” at the end of the 1905 relativity paper), the correspondence between them testifies to Besso’s lifelong grappling with Einstein’s ideas in physics.[24] On the other hand, looking at all relevant sources such as the considerable correspondence between Einstein and his academic colleagues and scientific friends, and reminiscences of the latter, there is no hint of any corresponding role by Marić. Nor did she ever make any claim of providing any assistance in his work, and there is not the slightest suggestion of such in any of her surviving published letters to her close friend Helen Kaufler. In the period prior to Einstein’s production of the 1905 papers she writes of the household duties which were taking up most of her time, and of her joy in the antics of the infant Hans Albert, but there is no hint of any active involvement with physics. The papers published in this period she unequivocally assigns solely to Einstein, and when in December 1901 she wrote of his first (unsuccessful) Ph.D. thesis, her words do not indicate the role nowadays suggested for her: “I have read this work with great joy and real admiration for my little darling, who has such a clever head.”[25]

    John Stachel, founding editor of the Albert Einstein Collected Papers project, has challenged the chief proponents of the Marić “collaboration” thesis to provide reasons why there is a stronger case for Mileva Marić than for Besso:

    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.[26]

    Concerning the contention that she checked Einstein’s mathematics there is little in the way of reliable information, and she made no claims herself to this effect. Even such limited contentions are dependent on third-hand reports, the reliability of which cannot be confirmed.[27] More generally, given Marić’s failure to obtain a teaching diploma, and the absence of hard evidence of any original work on her part, there seems little justification for the frequent description of her as a “Serbian physicist”, or “mathematician”.

    In the end what really matters is admirably summed up by Isaacson (p. 137):

    There is, in fact, no need to exaggerate Marić’s contributions in order to admire, honor, and sympathize with her as a pioneer. To give her credit beyond what she ever claimed, says the science historian Gerald Holton, “only detracts both from her real and significant place in history and from the tragic unfulfillment of her early hopes and promise.”

    I would only add the caveat that, in contrast to other central European countries at the time, in relatively progressive Switzerland even in the year before Marić started the four-year teaching diploma course there were 8 female students (out of 32) in the section for training mathematics and science teachers at Zurich Polytechnic, with 3 (out of 10) studying mathematics and physics.[28] But this does not detract from Marić’s exceptional achievement in overcoming both personal difficulties and institutionalised obstacles to acquire a College education in physical science from which women were disbarred in much of Europe at the end of the nineteenth century.

    One final point. In this section of his book Isaacson makes the extraordinary claim (p. 136) that, with one exception, the “PBS documentary Einstein’s Wife, in 2003, was generally balanced”. Since the documentary contends that Marić was the joint author of Einstein’s early papers up to at least 1905, this is so completely at odds with his own statement that “none of their many letters, to each other or to friends, mentions a single instance of an idea or creative concept relating to relativity that came from Marić” (or, one might add, on any other topic in physics), and his final summing up that Marić provided no substantive contribution to Einstein’s scientific achievements, that it must be regarded as an aberration on Isaacson’s part. (See my documentation
    of the numerous errors and misconceptions that permeate Einstein’s Wife.)

    NOTES (Citations refer to books and articles listed in the Bibliography)

    1. The Intimate Life of A. Einstein. Time, 12 July 2006

    2. Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics? A Response to Troemel-Ploetz.

    3. Highfield, R. and Carter, P. (1993), pp. 114-115.
    4. Stachel, J (2002), p. 36.

    5. Mileva Marić: Einstein’s Wife
    6. Isaacson, W. (2007), pp. 136-137.

    7. Time Magazine, 5 April 2007.

    8. Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics? A Response to Troemel-Ploetz.

    9. Troemel-Ploetz, S. (1990), pp. 415-420.

    10. Isaacson, W. (2007), pp. 90 [and Note 1, p. 575], 103.

    11. Isaacson, W. (2007), p. 135.

    12. Martínez, A. A. (2005).

    13. Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics? A Response to Troemel-Ploetz.

    14. Mileva Marić: Einstein’s Wife

    Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics? A Response to Troemel-Ploetz.

    15. Fölsing, A. (1990)

    16. Trbuhović-Gjurić, D. (1983), p. 93; (1991), p. 106 [my translation – A. E.].

    17. Zackheim, M. (1999), pp. 185-186.

    18. Renn, J & Schulmann, R. (1992), p. 12.

    19. Albert Einstein Collected Papers, Volume 1 (ed. Stachel et al), 1987, doc. 67, p. 247.

    20. Stachel, J. (2002), p. 29.

    21. Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics? A Response to Troemel-Ploetz.

    22. Albert Einstein Collected Papers, Volume 5 (English trans. A. Beck), 1995, doc.31, p. 22.

    23. Michelmore, P. (1962), p. 45.

    24. Besso, M. (1979).

    25. Popović, M. (2003), pp. 70, 80, 83, 86.

    26. Stachel, J. (2002), p. 36.

    27. Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics? A Response to Troemel-Ploetz.

    Mileva Marić: Einstein’s Wife

    28. Stachel, J. (2002), p. 30.

    Bibliography

    Besso, M. (1979). Albert Einstein: Correspondance avec Michele Besso 1903-1955. Paris: Hermann.

    Einstein, A. The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Princeton University Press.

    Esterson, A. (2006a). Einstein’s Wife: Mileva Maric 1.

    Esterson, A. (2006b). Einstein’s Wife: Mileva Maric 2.

    Esterson, A. (2006c). Mileva Maric: Einstein’s Wife

    Esterson, A. (2006d). Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics? A Response to Troemel-Ploetz.

    Fölsing, A. (1990). Keine ‘Mutter der Relativitätstheorie’, Die Zeit, 16 November 1990.

    Fölsing, A. (1997). Albert Einstein. (Trans. by E. Osers.) New York: Penguin Books.

    Highfield, R. and Carter, P. (1993). The Private Lives of Albert Einstein. London: Faber and Faber.

    Isaacson, W. (2007). Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Martínez, A. A. (2005). Handling Evidence in History: The Case of Einstein’s Wife.

    School Science Review, March 2005, 86 (316), pp. 49-56.

    Michelmore, P. (1962). Einstein: Profile of the Man. New York: Dodd, Mead.

    Overbye, D. (2000). Einstein in Love. New York: Viking.

    Popović, M. (ed.) (2003). In Albert’s Shadow The Life and Letters of Mileva Marić, Einstein’s First Wife. Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Renn, J. and Schulmann, R. (eds.) (1992). Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric: The Love Letters. Trans. by S. Smith. Princeton University Press.

    Reiser, A. (1930). Albert Einstein: A Bibliographical Portrait. New York: Boni.

    Stachel, J. (2002). Einstein from ‘B’ to ‘Z’. Boston/Basel/Berlin: Birkhäuser.

    Trbuhović-Gjurić, D. (1983). Im Schatten Albert Einsteins: Das tragische Leben der Mileva Einstein-Marić. Bern: Paul Haupt. (The German language edition is an edited version of the book by Trbuhović-Gjurić originally published in Serbo-Croat in Yugoslavia in 1969.)

    Trbuhović-Gjurić, D. (1991), Mileva Einstein: Une Vie (French translation of Im Schatten Albert Einsteins: Das tragische Leben der Mileva Einstein-Marić). Paris: Antoinette Fouque.

    Troemel-Ploetz, S. (1990). Mileva Einstein-Marić: The Woman Who Did Einstein’s Mathematics. Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 13, No. 5, pp. 415-432.

    Zackheim, M. (1999). Einstein’s Daughter: The Search for Liserl. New York: Riverhead.

    April 2007