2. Studies of Mileva: Zurich,
Heidelberg, research with Albert
Einstein - missing academic year and
missing courses - chaos with Einstein
and pregnancy
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Zurich, Women's
Preparatory School for University in Zurich,
reliefs
Mileva was sent to finish high
school at the Women's Preparatory School in
Zurich, Switzerland (3'7'').
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University of
Zurich with monument
Milo¨ wanted
his daughter to become one of the first
female [medical] doctors (3'12''),
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University of
Zurich, entrance door
and in 1896, she entered
the University of Zurich, which was the
first University in Europe to allow
women to study medicine (3'21'').
[Father Milo¨ made a giant mistake:
Mileva had no medical practice either in
hospitals or in natural medicine. Other
medical students have done that in their
youth, and it can be assumed that because of
this lack of medicinal practice in their
youth, Mileva did not feel well studying
medicine].
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Polytechnic
(since 1911 called ETH) in Zurich, western facade
in the sunset
Mileva
preferred to study physics ans mathematics and
convinced her father that she should transfer
to Zurich Polytechnic, Swiss Poly (3'31'').
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Rudolf
Mumenthaler, director of ETH library
Mumenthaler:
"Mileva had a diploma of the Higher Daughter's
School (Höhere Töchterschule), so a school for
women here in Zurich (3'38''). But she had to
pass an examination, because that diploma was
not enough (3'43''). It was not a grammar school
(Gymnasium) (3'46''). We are now in the room,
where the results of these examinations were
presented to the students (3'51''), so we know
that in 1896, Mileva stood in October in this
room and heard that she passed examination
(4'0'')."
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Clique of physics
with Einstein+Grossmann+Geissler
At Swiss Poly, she joined the
section of boys which included Albert Einstein
and Marcel Grossman (4'7''). 17 year old Albert
was immediately taken with Mileva who was 21
(4'12''). He was not only impressed with her
scientific mind, but also her musical ability
and discipline determination (4'20'').
[Both made classical
music: Einstein played violin, Mileva
played piano. So, between Einstein and
Mileva, there was also a
"spherical-musical" connection that
always strived for harmony].
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Einstein 17 and
Mileva 21 years old
In many
ways, Albert and Mileva were alike: they both
had experienced ethnic prejudice and the
upheaval of changing homes and living far away
from family for the purpose of education
(4'31''). They each had their nicknames
because of their superior intellect (4'35'').
And now they were seeking the same degree
(4'38'').
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View on
Heidelberg
At the end of her first
semester at Swiss Poly, Mileva left for the
University of Heidelberg to audit the
lectures of Philipp Lenard (4'48''), a
famous professor of theoretical physics
(4'51'').
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N.L. Harshman,
theoretical physicist
Harshman:
"Philipp Lenard is the
co-author of the Leonard Picard equation
(4'55''), which describes how a charge affects
another charge (4'59''). This, when they are
separated by distance in time (5'2''). It is a
manifestly relativistic equation, and it was the
symmetries of that equation, and equations like
that, that led to special relativity (5'10'')."
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Heidelberg, Hotel
Ritter (Hotel Knight)
In its 500 year history, the
University of Heidelberg had allowed only two
women to graduate. That was just the year before
Mileva arrived (5'19''). The Hotel Ritter, where
she lived, was a student gathering center, and
Mileva found herself caught up in social
activity (5'28''). Although Albert wrote calling
her his little runaway, she didn't reply
immediately (5'33''). When she finally did
respond, it was to tell him that the fog put her
in a dreamy mood and to describe Leonard's
lecture on the kinetic theory of gases (5'41'').
She also wrote:
"Man would be able to understand infinity if he
were not confined to a human skull, but could
venture out into space and not be cooped up on
earth (6'0'')."
(orig.
German: "Der Mensch wäre fähig,
Unendlichkeit zu erfassen, wäre sein Denken
nicht auf den menschlichen Schädel
beschränkt (5'51''). Dann wäre er frei, in
das All vorzudringen, ohne an unseren
Erdball gebunden zu sein." (6'0'')
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Mileva returned to Swiss Poly
after one semester at the University of
Heidelberg (6'6'').
Dr. Rudolf Mumenthaler
Mumenthaler:
"Zurich was the first University in Europe who
accepted women as students (6'12''), it was in the
1860s, and the first woman at the ETH was -
started studying in 1872 (6'19''). So, that was
for Europe already a big thing (6'23'')."
[In France, women were
allowed to study first, and then
Switzerland followed as second country
allowing women to study - see Stachel:
Collaboration 1996].
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Zurich, Mileva in
a pension Engelbrecht (angel broken)
Albert became a daily fixture
in her room on the top floor of the Engelbrecht
boarding house (6'28''). And as Mileva fell in
love with him, her focus began to shift
(6'32'').
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Regina Balmer
Capella, editor of edition Haupt in Bern
Ms. Balmer Capella:
"She arrived in Zurich as one
of the first women to make her studies and
mathematics (6'41''), and she was a brilliant
student (6'45''), and then she met Albert, and
in the beginning they shared the work, they
shared to study, and just after she came back
from Heidelberg, she came back to Zurich
again, and she realized that she was in love
with this student, with Albert (7'3''), and
then she began to go behind him, she began to
aim for his work, and not any more for her
personal work." (7'15'')
[Mileva did the math for Einstein
because Einstein thought that math would be a
mental obstacle for recognizing the world of
physics. So, Einstein refused to learn high
mathematics and let Mileva always do the high
mathematics and Mileva did it instead of
teaching Einstein the high mathematics (!). In
his family Einstein never confessed that he
did not know about high mathematics but Mileva
did it ... Einstein was hiding all that from
his parents and from the world (!) - see
Plötz: The Woman Who - 1990].
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Einstein's mother
Pauline Einstein
When she learned of Albert's
feelings for Mileva, his mother thought it was a
schoolboy crush and she teased him about it
(7'23'').
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Marić Family with
Mileva (right)
Mileva's
parents were happy to think that she had her
first boyfriend and send gifts for Albert
(7'29'').
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Hermann
Minkowski, professor at Polytechnic, portrait
That semester, they attended
to lectures of a professor Hermann Minkowski
(7'36''), on his development of four-dimensional
space-time geometry (7'41''), and from this,
they began to formulate the special theory of
relativity (7'46'').
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N.L. Harshman,
theoretical physicist
"Minkovski
is considered by some to be the father of
four-dimensional space-time (7'52''). Before
Minkovski and Einstein had his whole
relativity, people considered space to be a
flat thing (8'0''), much like a - when you
imagine a flat table - that's a two
dimensional flat space (8'4''). Well,
Minkowski gave us the mathematics to
geometrically represent a unification of time
and space (8'13'')."
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Polytechnic in Zurich, a
lecture hall - [the asshole Prof. Fiedler blocks
Mileva with arbitrary bad marks against women]
Mileva
attended a 37 hours of lectures that were
required Monday to Saturday, at Swiss Poly
(8'20''), including those of Professor Wilhelm
Fiedler who intimidated her, and gave her a
less on satisfactory grade in his class and
projective geometry (8'29'').
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Dr. Rudolf
Mumenthaler
"Professor Fiedler was
already an elder professor when Mileva came to
ETH and I can imagine that he was a little bit
conservative and that he had some problems with
women as students." (8'42'')
[The woman-hater Otto Wilhelm
Fiedler came from Chemnitz in Saxony, was a
geometry specialist, made his doctorate about
central projection, became a professor in
descriptive geometry in Prague in 1864, from
1867 at the ETH in Zurich, became a Swiss in
1875, finished teaching in 1907 - see Mossad
Wikipedia: Otto Wilhelm Fiedler. How many
women became victims of this Mr. Fiedler is
unknown, Mileva was one of them].
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Polytechnic in
Zurich, a laboratory of physics
Albert preferred to skip class
often and work in a laboratory where Mileva
would join him to work on their own experiments
(8'49'').
"Mileva
and Albert Einstein spent most of their
students time in the Institute of Physics for
the new building up the hill here and with one
of the best academic laboratories of that time
(9'6''). And, but they were not very - they
didn't agree with the professors there
(9'12''), and Albert Einstein especially
didn't like his lessons, and they and searched
for - on their own and spent a lot of free
time also in the laboratories." (9'23'')
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Zurich,
Einstein's house
And they spent many evenings at
the café across the street from Albert's
boardinghouse (9'29''),
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Zurich, local pub
of Einstein with Besso and Adler etc.
with other
students, including Marcel Grossman,
Friedrich Adler, and Michele Besso
(9'35''), who would all remain lifelong
friends (9'37'').
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Zürich, Mileva in
the pension Engelbrecht (angel broken)
Eventually, Mileva and Albert
became lovers (9'42''). Her landlady, Mrs.
Engelbrecht, didn't suspect that this extremely
quiet young woman could romantically attract a
young man as charming and gregarious as Albert
was (9'53'').
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Mileva apr. 22
years old
Albert was Mileva's first and
only love (9'57'').
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Marcel
Grossman suspected a deepening relationship, and
with regards to Milevas disability he said
(10'6''): "I would never have encouraged to marry
a woman unless she were absolutely sound."
(10'11'')
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When Albert's mother had realized
that the relationship had become serious
(10'16''), she became hysterical with
announcements to Mileva, and wrote letters
filled with scathing [Jewish] criticism [against
Christian Mileva] (10'23''), stating that no
decent family would have her (10'27''). Albert
passed these letters along to Mileva (10'29'')
who tried to think of ways to bring over
Albert's mother (10'33'').
[Einstein was hiding that he could not
do high mathematics, and Einstein was also
hiding that Mileva was the one who did the high
math for him, like in a "tandem," and Mileva was
ALSO hiding everything. That's why the Einstein
parents never knew what a valuable connection
they were fighting. So, Einstein AND Mileva were
BOTH COWARD, never telling the truth about this
scientific connection].
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Polytechnic in Zurich, professors Minkowsky
(middle) and Weber (right)
With Albert's mother in the
midst of this emotional confusion, Mileva took
her final exams at Swiss Poly (10'39'').
Although her grade point average was passing,
inexplicably Mileva was denied a diploma by the
Board of Examiners (10'48''). Mileva had missed
two semesters of work at Swiss Poly, because of
attending the University of Zurich and the
University of Heidelberg (10'56''). And this may
have influenced the decision about her diploma
(11'0''). It is likely that she experienced the
bias of professors who did not see a future for
a woman in the sciences (11'6'').
Mileva matriculation, which
lacks one-year courses, other courses are
graded 5 ("good") - Mileva: courses from
1897 to 1898 are missing
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Dr. Mumenthaler:
"Quite difficult for women, especially at ETH
where technical sciences were taught (11'11'').
People thought that was nothing for women, and
so eh - they had to fight." (11'19'')
And women regraded with a different standard and
attitude.
"I know an anecdote of a famous professor who
still in the 1960s very harshly criticized an
assistant who wanted to give highest grade to a
woman, and he said: 'He would never give the
highest mark to a woman, even if she earned it.'
So that was in the 1960s, and we can think that
earlier it was not better." (11'44'') |
