Einstein, Albert (14 Mar. 1879-18 Apr. 1955), theoretical physicist, was born in Ulm, Germany, to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch, who had married in 1876. In 1880 the family moved to Munich. There Hermann ran various industrial concerns, eventually managing an electrical business in which his younger brother Jakob provided the technical direction. The two Einstein families lived together in a large house in a Munich suburb. Albert Einstein and his younger sister Maria (Maja) grew up surrounded by Jakob's electrical innovations. Jakob also provided young Albert with science textbooks, notably a seminal exposition of Euclidean geometry. Einstein went to a local primary school and then attended the Luitpold Gymnasium, a progressive secondary school. He succeeded admirably in all his subjects. Following elementary school practice, he received lessons in Judaism, the registered religion of his free-thinking parents. His mother had him study violin privately, and the instrument provided him solace throughout his life.
The Einstein electrotechnical business foundered in the highly competitive environment of the middle 1890s. In 1894 Hermann and Jakob Einstein lost a bid to illuminate the streets of Munich. Hermann reestablished himself first in Milan and then in Pavia. Pauline and Maja accompanied him. Albert stayed behind to complete secondary school. After a number of months Albert abandoned school and joined his parents in Milan. He planned to study on his own in preparation for attending the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, one of Europe's finest institutions of higher learning in science, which admitted students by examination.
Einstein spent a year in Italy. As his family's business was proceeding unevenly, financial support came from his mother's relatives. Einstein demonstrated his appreciation of this family solidarity by sending a scientific manuscript to a favorite uncle, Caesar Koch. It dealt with the electromagnetical ether and magnetical fields. Einstein traveled to Zurich in 1895, stayed with a family friend, Gustav Maier (a founder of the Swiss Ethical Culture Society), and failed the part of the polytechnic entrance examination that dealt with general culture. A sympathetic examiner urged him to attend the final year in the nearby Aarau cantonal school, whose diploma guaranteed admission to the polytechnic. Einstein's parents sent him to Aarau, where through Maier's intercession he boarded at the home of history professor Jost Winteler. The school's curriculum, physics laboratory, and natural history museum compared favorably with the environment at small universities of the period. The year at Aarau--and the model of his physics instructor August Tuchschmid--persuaded Einstein to give up plans to study engineering; he entered the general scientific section of the Zurich polytechnic, which prepared graduates for a career in secondary school teaching and provided the foundation for obtaining a doctorate at the adjoining University of Zurich.
Supported by a relative, Einstein attended the polytechnic from 1896 to 1900. During this time he was officially stateless, having renounced his Württemburg (and hence his German) citizenship early in 1896 so that he would not be arrested as a draft dodger if he visited Germany. Because he saved a portion of his allowance for purchasing Swiss citizenship (which he eventually did in 1901), he lived on the brink of destitution. At the polytechnic, he registered for many courses in pure and applied mathematics and in physics. Among his teachers were the German pure mathematician Hermann Minkowski, whose style he found unstimulating, and the Swiss experimental physicist Heinrich Friedrich Weber, in whose laboratory he happily toiled. Einstein was an independent student who did not endear himself to his professors. He succeeded in his final examinations by borrowing lecture notes from fellow students, notably Marcel Grossmann. Upon graduating, Einstein failed to be named assistant by any of his teachers--the usual post obtained by a young scientist working toward a doctorate.
