3 ms·

I definitely agree he had a mathematician working with him to help, but am not sure it was his wife. I think that there's varying interpretations of her contrib

by qchris 6y ago

I definitely agree he had a mathematician working with him to help, but am not sure it was his wife. I think that there's varying interpretations of her contributions to A. Einstein's work. If I'm remembering correctly, Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography tended towards says that she didn't truly contribute much to any of the work he did around that time, but that he did have a colleague or two formally trained in non-Euclidean geometries that he spent a lot of time working on GR with.

agonz253 6y ago
It was Marcel Grossman who introduced him to Riemman's work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Grossmann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Grossmann There is no evidence that his wife provided any of the "mathematical muscle needed for GR", nor is there reason to suspect that she would have been in a position to do so, since she was not a mathematician and had failed the undergraduate physics degree at the institute where she met Einstein (Einstein himself barely passed though). [0] https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781402039997 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781402039997
pmiller2 6y ago
> If I'm remembering correctly, Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography tended towards says that she didn't truly contribute much to any of the work he did around that time.... I'm not sure how much credence I'd put in such an assertion given that Einstein himself wrote in a letter to Mileva: > “When I read Helmholtz for the first time, it seemed so odd that you were not at my side and today, this is not getting better. I find the work we do together very good, healing and also easier.” Emphasis added by me. Having not read the book, Isaacson might have some additional evidence and insights I'm not aware of, but who knows?
- agonz253 6y ago
  > “When I read Helmholtz for the first time, it seemed so odd that you were not at my side and today, this is not getting better. I find the work we do together very good, healing and also easier.” Note that this was written when they were both undergraduate students and would study together.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    There are other examples in the SA article I posted, including a letter from 1905 where Einstein talks about their "work on relative motion."
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by qchris 6y ago

agonz253 6y ago

It was Marcel Grossman who introduced him to Riemman's work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Grossmann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Grossmann There is no evidence that his wife provided any of the "mathematical muscle needed for GR", nor is there reason to suspect that she would have been in a position to do so, since she was not a mathematician and had failed the undergraduate physics degree at the institute where she met Einstein (Einstein himself barely passed though). [0] https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781402039997 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781402039997

pmiller2 6y ago

> If I'm remembering correctly, Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography tended towards says that she didn't truly contribute much to any of the work he did around that time.... I'm not sure how much credence I'd put in such an assertion given that Einstein himself wrote in a letter to Mileva: > “When I read Helmholtz for the first time, it seemed so odd that you were not at my side and today, this is not getting better. I find the work we do together very good, healing and also easier.” Emphasis added by me. Having not read the book, Isaacson might have some additional evidence and insights I'm not aware of, but who knows?

agonz253 6y ago
> “When I read Helmholtz for the first time, it seemed so odd that you were not at my side and today, this is not getting better. I find the work we do together very good, healing and also easier.” Note that this was written when they were both undergraduate students and would study together.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  There are other examples in the SA article I posted, including a letter from 1905 where Einstein talks about their "work on relative motion."

deleted 6y ago

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