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Reply #31: To me it looks like a woman who isn't comfortable with the fact [View All]

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wtmusic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-21-06 03:36 AM
Response to Reply #30
31. To me it looks like a woman who isn't comfortable with the fact
that one of the greatest geniuses of all time happened to be a man. She (Geraldine Hilton) is fighting a lonely crusade against people who have spent their careers studying Einstein's work and against a mountain of evidence, and she's failing miserably.

I'm not buying it and I'm not a misogynist and I'm not sexist.

"1. Maric was not a "brilliant mathematician."

2. There is no evidence that Maric "collaborated with Einstein on his 1905 papers on Brownian Motion, Special Relativity and the photoelectric effect.

3. The account of the discovery of the Einstein/Maric letters is "totally and unequivocally false" .

4. The publication of the Einstein/Maric letters did not "rock the international scientific community."

5. Maric did not "specialise in theoretical physics."

6. Lenard was not "one of the great pioneers of quantum physics."

7. Maric did not keep Einstein "abreast of" the "brave new world" of the photoelectric effect, etc.

8. There is no evidence that Maric "cut classes" at Zurich Polytechnic.

9. Maric was not, with Einstein, "trying to solve the puzzles of the universe in mathematical form . . ."

10. Einstein did not "fail final exams."

11. The board of examiners did not "round Albert's mark to a pass."

12. Troemel-Ploetz's "explanation" for Maric's failure that "Einstein already has his diploma and she doesn't need one, one is enough in one family" is absurd, as they didn't marry until nearly three years later.

13. Einstein's personal research on physics did not depend on "Mileva's access and good standing with their professor to keep their private research alive."

14. There are very many more instances of Einstein using "I" and "my" in relation to his extracurricular work in letters when they were students than of his use of "we" and "our." The relatively rare use of "our" sometimes referred to their co-operative study on their diploma dissertations, not Einstein's personal work on physics. Also, the Special Relativity theory was only arrived at by Einstein several years later.

15. Maric was not with Einstein when he inaugurated the "Olympia Academy" in 1902.

16. Solovine did not say of Maric that, "She occasionally joined in." He said the opposite, that she listened but never contributed to the discussions. Solovine did not say of Maric that she was "clearly more interested in physics than housework."

17. The evidence that "Mileva's father visits them shortly after the birth and offers Einstein a handsome dowry" is based on dubious third-hand reminiscences obtained decades later.

18. There is no serious evidence that Einstein told Maric's father, "I didn't marry her for money. I married her because I love her, because we are one. She is my guardian angel against the sins of life and especially so in the sciences." It is a fourth-hand report of reminiscences by an interested party obtained decades later.

18. The "Einsteins" did not submit five papers for publication in 1905. Einstein alone did that.

19. Maric did not "review scientific papers."

20. There is no serious evidence that Maric told Einstein in private conversation: "This is a great achievement, a beautiful achievement."

21. Maric did not work with Einstein on the E=mc2 1905 paper.

22. Abraham Joffe did not "cite both Albert's and Mileva's names on the original manuscripts" of 1905.

23. The fragment of a page shown on the screen is not from the work the narrator claims.

24. There is no serious evidence "they debated, calculated and read and write about science problems" at this time.

25. There is no evidence that Mileva Maric's "name was removed" as co-author from the 1905 papers, since it wasn't there in the first place.

26. There is not a scrap of evidence that Maric "actually prepares some of Einstein's lectures."

27. The statement in the voice of "Einstein" at the end of the documentary, "Without her I would never have started my work, and certainly not finished it," is without foundation. It is also absurd, because at that time (1904 according to the narrator earlier in the film) Einstein had scarcely begun his work, and it is inconceivable that he would have said he'd "finished it."
'Einstein's Wife' PBS Web Site: List of Errors

Below is a list of errors, misrepresentations, and contentions lacking substantive evidence, on the PBS "Einstein's Wife" Web site and associated Lesson Plans for school students.

Note: For a full critique of the PBS Web site material, including the detailed documenting of the errors, see http://www.esterson.org/einsteinwife2.htm.

1. Mileva Maric was not "erased from history."

2. Einstein wrote no personal autobiographies, only intellectual autobiographical articles.

3. Einstein did mention Maric in one of the autobiographical sketches.

4. Virtually all biographies of Einstein before 1987 mention Maric.

5. There is no evidence that "Einstein's executrix systematically destroyed potential evidence" about Maric's alleged role in his work.

6. There is no evidence that Einstein "demands all her time" when Maric was a Polytechnic student, nor that she "sacrificed her studies" on his account.

7. They did not "both fail their exams." Einstein passed.

8. The alleged comment of Maric's, "We finished some important work that will make my husband world famous" is unreliable third-hand gossip.

9. Maric did not set the condition in the divorce settlement for the Nobel Prize money to go to her, this was proposed by Einstein. (In fact the capital was to be held in a bank account for their sons.)

10. There is no evidence that Maric liked dealing with statistics.

11. The statement that Einstein "doesn't like dealing with statistics" is scientific nonsense. He made major contributions to statistical physics over a period of two decades.

12. Joffe is not a "supporter" of the claim that Maric collaborated on the 1905 papers.

13. Joffe nowhere "declares that he personally saw the names of two authors on the 1905 papers."

14. The fragment of a page on the website purporting to be from an article by Joffe is actually by someone else.

15. There are no "tantalizing clues" suggesting Maric's collaboration with Einstein in any letters to her friends.

16. The editors of the Einstein Collected Papers have not "claimed neutral territory." They say unequivocally that the evidence does not support the collaboration claims.

17. There is no evidence "to confirm that . . . Einstein did have a partner . . . in his scientific research — his first wife Mileva Maric Einstein."

18. Maric was not "a gifted scholar and scientist" before she met Einstein. She had just graduated from high school.

19. The only documented "knowledge" Maric "shared with Albert" was a short rather jocular passage about one lecture on the speed of oxygen molecules.

20. There is no evidence that Maric was doing any extra-curricular "research."

21. Maric's overall average final diploma mark was not "slightly below Albert's," it was considerably below (by approximately 18%) on the grading scale 1-6.

22. Maric was not "denied" a diploma. She failed because of her very low mathematics grade.

23. There are very many more instances of Einstein using "I" and "my" in relation to his extracurricular work in letters when they were students than of his use of "we" and "our." The relatively rare use of "our" sometimes referred to their co-operative study on their diploma dissertations, not Einstein's personal work on physics. Also, Einstein's first important papers were not published until several years later.

24. The statement that Maric "studied physics at the highest levels" is totally without evidential support.

25. There is no evidence that Maric collaborated with Einstein on his work when she was his wife.

26. They did not "publish some early works together," nor "conduct research together" outside of their Polytechnic studies.

27. The statement that Maric brought back from Heidelberg knowledge that "served as part of the foundation of quantum mechanics" is scientific nonsense.

28. There is not a scrap of evidence that "Mileva's name removed" as co-author from the celebrated 1905 papers.

29. To say that Maric "had the education and the ability to conduct the research" that Einstein did displays a gross ignorance of Einstein's prodigious achievements in his early twenties.

30. There is no evidence that "they worked closely together for years" on his papers.

31. Maric was not "a pioneering woman in the world of physics," and she did not "contribute" to Quantum Physics.

32. Philipp Lenard was not "a pioneer in quantum physics."

33. Maric did not learn "cutting edge physics" with Lenard.

34. There is no evidence that Maric "cut classes" at Zurich Polytechnic.

35. There is no evidence that Einstein's diploma "grades were rounded up to a passing mark."

http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2006/12/einsteins_wife_the_relative_motion_of_facts.html
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