Talk:Mileva Marić

It is a grotesque distortion of (historic) facts, and an insult to physicists and mathematicians dead and alive, not to mention to mathematics and physics students who are working hard, to call Mileva Marić a “Serbian physicist and mathematician” when the record (in the very same article) states that she failed her diploma exam twice, and in particular the mathematics part with grade 2.5 (that was and is between “Poor” and “Insufficient”), and also considering that she has never actually worked as a physicist or mathematician or even published any scientific work under her name. PointedEars (talk) 15:35, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

As there has been no (negative) reaction, I have now removed the corresponding claims and references. --PointedEars (talk) 22:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

While reviewing similar issues in articles of a similar topic, I noticed that the opening sentence of the article has undertaken to identify Mileva Marić as a “Serbian physicist and mathematician” – the exact phrase @PointedEars followed appropriate processes to solicit opinion on. With reference to MOS:CONTEXTBIO (I believe the example of Isaac Asimov is most relevant here?), Marić's ethnicity isn't to be included in the opening sentence. PointedEars's edit also made a valid point of emphasizing the reason for Marić's prominence and relevance for inclusion in Wikipedia in the first place. There are many individuals of Serbian ethnicity who studied physics and mathematics, but only one of them was ever married to the man who developed the theory of relativity. Breadpachinko (talk) 23:17, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Breadpachinko, thank you for mentioning me which gave me the opportunity to remove the Marić fansʼ false and unfounded claims, and excessive education details, again. I think this article should be protected to avoid further ideological (nationalist, feminist) revisionist interference. PointedEars (talk) 10:08, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

The squeeze mapping is the math behind Lorentz boosts, which are the main feature of special relativity. This mapping preserves hyperbolas such as the conjugate hyperbolas used by Minkowski to demarcate curves of equal time and equal distance from an origin event. The squeeze mappings arise in split-complex numbers, a structure mentioned by James Cockle in 1852. In Serbia, Roger Boscovich expounded on space and time in 1758, and later Vladimir Varićak studied him and taught Mileva Maric. Varićak described Lorentz boosts as actions of the unit hyperbola on spacetime using hyperbolic functions. The great contribution of Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein was to write the hyperbolic rotation with algebraic functions rather than the transcendental ones of Varićak. Their collaboration, at a crossroads in Switzerland, facilitated the cosmology springing from Serbia and English authors such as W. K. Clifford, and Alexander Macfarlane who described hyperbolic quaternions in the 1890s. — Rgdboer (talk) 00:54, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

“[...] later Vladimir Varićak studied [Roger Boscovich] and taught Mileva Maric. [...] The great contribution of Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein was to write the hyperbolic rotation with algebraic functions rather than the transcendental ones of Varićak. Their collaboration, at a crossroads in Switzerland, facilitated the cosmology springing from Serbia and English authors [...]”

Pure invention, something we call Geschichtsklitterung (which roughly translates to pseudohistory) in German.

• Varićak was Marić's high school teacher in Zagreb (1891–1894). Do you really think he taught her this topic then (when she was only 16 to 20 years old)?
• Marić was neither a mathematician nor a physicist (I have removed those false claims): “In 1900, she failed the final [...] examinations [at the Zürich Polytechnic, for a diploma as Teacher of Mathematics and Physics, like Einstein] with a grade average of 4.00 [out of 6.0], having obtained only grade 2.5 [out of 6.0] in the mathematics component (theory of functions)”, of all topics. “[I]n 1901”, “[w]hen three months pregnant” by Einstein, “she resat the diploma examination, but failed for the second time without improving her grade.” (Mileva Marić: Biography)
• In Einstein's and Varićak's mail correspondence from 1909 to 1913 (Einstein/Marić in Bern/Prague/Zürich; Varićak at the University of Zagreb the whole time), Varićak argued that length contraction would only be an “apparent” or “psychological” phenomenon (ibid.).
• There is no evidence that Einstein and Marić ever collaborated on any scientific work in the claimed sense. At best, she might have proofread the mathematical parts of his work until 1912 when their marriage is described to have become “strained” due to Einstein moving to Berlin in 1914 after his extramarital affair there (1912–1919) with his cousin and later second wife Elsa Einstein/Löwenthal/Einstein (married 1919). (Family and personal relationships).
• Finally, Varićak published his hyperbolic reinterpretation of special relativity in 1924 (ibid.) when Einstein had already divorced Marić (1919) after moving to Berlin, and had gone on to formulate and postulate general relativity (1915/1916).

--PointedEars (talk) 15:36, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

I see no consensus to remove the question about the collaboration. If there are new sources about the status, then the lead can be updated accordingly. That is a better solution than removing. StephenMacky1 (talk) 11:18, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

The date is 1912 for Varicak’s Non-euclidean interpretation of relativity theory. The premise of constant light velocity is enough to require the hyperbolic plane (quadratic forms), and the continuous mapping of squeezing, moving conjugate diameters to yield the constant ratio. The English authors were shy about invoking the model as a cosmos, but the German language invoked the temporal dimension. The fundamental nature of hyperbolic angles is shown in b:Algebra/Chapter 12/Natural Logarithm via Hyperbolic Angle. — Rgdboer (talk) 02:39, 25 January 2026 (UTC)