#On_This_Day 122 years ago (27th July 1900) Albert Einstein got his diploma after completing his studies at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich during 1896-1900.
After Einstein had passed the Matura exam in Aarau, he entered the sixth department at the Polytechnic in Zurich, the school for specialist teachers in mathematics and natural sciences. The only woman was his future wife Mileva Maric enrolled there.
Einstein was disappointed that various newer theories of physics were not dealt with at “Poly”, such as James Clerk Maxwell’s theory of the electromagnetic field.
He only attended a few lectures and preferred to study at home on electrodynamics for moving bodies” by Heinrich Hertz, who dealt with Maxwell’s theory.
When preparing for exams, he sometimes relied on the lecture notes of fellow students.
In July 1900 he graduated from Poly with a diploma. Apart from him, all four graduates found an assistant position at the polytechnic.
After graduating, he initially struggled as a private tutor until he was appointed as an expert, class III, at the Patent Office in Berne in 1902.
In 1905 he published his celebrated paper on the special theory of relativity along with four other key articles.
He was an associate professor at the University of Zurich from 1909, a professor at the Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague from 1911 and taught at ETH Zurich as a professor of theoretical physics from 1912 to 1914.
In Berlin, where he held a professorship from 1914, which relieved him of all teaching duties, he made his breakthrough in the general theory of relativity in 1915.
In 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect back in 1905. When the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933 and put a bounty on his head, he emigrated to Princeton (New Jersey, USA).
At the Institute for Advanced Study, he continued with the generalisation of the theory of gravitation, which he had been working on constantly since 1916.
Albert Einstein died in Princeton on 18 April 1955 after a brief illness.
Archive Credit :ETH Zurich
