Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) in Zurich – from Tutor to Professor

Albert Einstein studied at the polytechnic, which is now called the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), from 1896 to 1900. He graduated with a Degree in Mathematics and Natural Sciences. From 1909, he was an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Zurich and from 1912 to 1914 he worked as a Professor of Theoretical Physics at ETH Zürich.

He held a professorship in Berlin from 1914 which relieved him of all teaching obligations and as a result, he went on to make a breakthrough in the general theory of relativity in 1915. In 1921, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his 1905 work on the photoelectrical effect.

Einstein lived in six different houses in the Zurich districts of Hottingen and Fluntern and these have been preserved to the present day. At the property on Unionsstrasse 4, a plaque pays tribute to its former famous resident.