Einstein's Timeline in Zurich
The key dates linking Einstein with Zurich and ETH.
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1896: enters the Polytechnic
At 17, Einstein begins his studies at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, training to teach mathematics and physics.
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1900: graduates
He completes his diploma as a teacher of mathematics and physics.
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1901: Swiss citizenship
Einstein becomes a Swiss citizen.
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1902: the patent office in Bern
He starts work at the Swiss patent office in Bern, which gives him a steady job and time to think about physics.
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1905: a landmark year
He publishes papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and special relativity, and on the relation between mass and energy.
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1912–1914: professor at ETH
Einstein returns to Zurich as a professor of theoretical physics at the Polytechnic, now known as ETH, and works on general relativity.
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1914: moves to Berlin
He leaves Zurich to take up a post in Berlin.
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Later links
Einstein completed general relativity in 1915 and received the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1921. He emigrated to the United States in the 1930s and died in Princeton in 1955. ETH Zurich remembers him as one of its most famous students and professors.