When Mileva Marić turned 15, her father got special permission for her to take classes at an all-male prep school. She earned the highest grades in both math and physics, and started studying medicine in 1896. Soon after, she became only the fifth woman to be accepted at the prestigious Zurich Polytechnic, later known as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).

Einstein’s most incredible year of work—1905—came during his marriage to Mileva, a woman about whom not much was known until the later publication of love letters between the two in which Einstein talks about “our work” and “our theory” and praises her intelligence. The argument still rages—did Mileva substantively contribute to his work? Did she actually do the math for him, as some say? Did she give up her life for him? As Mileva wrote to her friend, Helene, “…all that fame does not leave a lot of time for a wife. But what can be done, one person gets the pearl and the other just gets the shell?"