Mileva Marić

Mileva Marić was a Serbian mathematician who entered Zurich Polytechnic in the 1890s as the sole woman among Einstein's classmates. The two became study colleagues, then lovers. In 1902 they had a daughter, Lieserl, who likely died of scarlet fever at eighteen months. They married in 1903 and had two sons, Hans Albert and Eduard. For sixteen years she was Einstein's wife during the years he upended physics, and debate over whether she contributed to his early work — especially the annus mirabilis papers — has persisted long past their 1919 divorce.