Here is a Nobel laureate coming from much the same background as Mitza, making her realize that, had she had the kind of husband Pierre Curie was, Albert would have reveled in Mitza’s accomplishments and brilliance. I found the scene between Madame Curie and Mitza particularly effective. While Mitza tries to keep her family together after Albert co-opts her theories and publishes under his own name, intentionally denying her whatever recognition she would be entitled to, Albert becomes an abuser and an adulterer – an all-around not nice guy. Benedict’s portrayal of Albert as a conniving, manipulative genius is marvelous. Only after Mitza and Albert become what he tells her is “ein stein” – one stone, and Mitza partners with Albert on a theory of relativity which was her vision, does Albert’s academic career take off – at Mitza’s expense. Mitza, now pregnant with their child, abandons her education. And so their relationship begins to develop they fall in love, they plan to marry, but Einstein can’t find a job. Why, Mitza asks, would he be interested in a dark-haired Serb with a limp? Well, he is. One of her classmates is Albert Einstein, who takes an immediate interest in her.

Mitza, a physicist-in-training, is a math genius who seeks to find a unifying explanation for how the world works. Mitza Marič is a brilliant young woman whose family struggles to get her accepted into and excel at Zurich’s elite Polytechnic, one of the few institutions of higher learning admitting women in the late 1890s.

The other einstein book review