Mileva Maric (1875- 1948) was a Serbian mathematician, and she was the only woman amongst Albert Einstein's class at university.

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Mileva's intelligence showed through a young age. She was well educated, and she excelled at mathematics and physics. She eventually enrolled at university to teach physics and mathematics in secondary schools at the same time as Albert Einstein. She was the only woman in a group of six students at a time when women weren't usually admitted. It was her incredible talent that allowed her to overcome the restrictions placed upon the admission of women.

 

Many people believe Mileva was the woman behind Einstein's greatest accomplishments and discoveries, however, this has been a subject of debate. Whilst many professionals of physics argue that she made no scientific contribution, others suggest that she was a supportive companion in science and may have helped him in his research. Scientific papers from 1905 showed evidence of this speculation due to the name of the author, Einstein-Marity, with Marity attributing to her official non-Swiss name.

 

Mileva and Einstein married in 1903, but divorced in 1919. When Einstein received news that he had won the Nobel Prize in 1922, he gave Mileva the prize money to help look after their children and her livelihood. Some speculate that this act of kindness was due to the fact that as a woman, Mileva's name couldn't have been credited on papers or receive credit for her ideas and theories within the scientific community, and she therefore blended into the shadows behind one of history's greatest scientists.