Helping him check his math was a moody Serbian, Mileva Mari, who had been the only woman in his physics class at college. They had fallen passionately in love and had an illegitimate daughter, which he allowed to be given up for adoption before he ever saw her. They then got married and had two boys. Eventually their relationship disintegrated, and Einstein sought a divorce. He offered her a deal: One of those 1905 papers, he presumed, would eventually win the Nobel Prize, and if she gave him a divorce he would give her the prize money. She thought for a week and accepted. Because Einstein’s theories were so radical, it took until 1922 before he was awarded the prize and she could collect.