The Other Einstein is an imagined account of the life of Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Marić. A brilliant mathematician and physicist, she enrolled at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich and they met through their studies. What follows is the story of her studies, their relationship, and the theories that made Einstein famous.

The facts on the ground are far from clear on most of these subjects; there’s apparently a lot of debate as to how much Marić contributed to the theory of relativity. This book takes a very certain position - which is that Marić came up with the idea and did most of the heavy mathematical lifting - and I think that’s partially for dramatic effect and partially out of a sense of fairness. That seems reasonable enough to me, given that the absolute truth will probably never be known. As a result we see quite another side of Einstein rarely portrayed in popular accounts - a portrait of a selfish, brutal, and intellectually lazy bohemian.

For all that I admire the idea of unearthing the history of an unappreciated woman in physics, I found the writing a little boring. The characters are just a little too flat and simplistic, and the descriptions are a little formulaic. Perhaps worst of all, the scientific exposition lacks imagination. The theory which lies at the heart of this book - the general theory of relativity - is a fascinating and profound statement with implications far beyond just physics. But all it garners is a paragraph or so of very uninspired contemplation, with a flash of insight that is as exciting as a ticket purchase. Instead, the book seems more or less obsessed with the concept of physics as a pseudo-religious explication of the natural order of things. There’s nothing wrong with that - it’s just a rather old and tired concept, dating back to at least Newton; and the story didn’t do very much to breathe life into this idea. On the whole, it seems like a missed opportunity.

I’m glad that this book exists - it definitely seems to me that Marić deserves her day in the spotlight. Regardless of the actual truth surrounding the miracle year of 1905, she was a pioneer in her own time; I only wish that her story had received a somewhat more sparkling treatment.