Albert Einstein
Turned down for academic posts; wrote the papers that changed physics as a patent clerk.
- Born
- 1879 · Ulm, Germany
- Roots
- Ashkenazi Jewish; German-born, later Swiss and US citizen
- Family
- Middle class
- Father ran an electrical-equipment company that failed in the mid-1890s; the family moved to Italy for work.
- Education
- ETH Zurich (physics and mathematics teaching diploma)
- Started with
- A compass
- The pocket compass his father showed him at five — by his account, his first encounter with invisible forces. The Bern patent office later paid the bills.
- Affiliations & societies
- Olympia AcademyDocumented
- Co-founded the informal Bern reading-and-debate circle with two friends in 1902.
- Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.
The pathway
- 1895 · age 16Fails the ETH entrance exam
Passes the mathematics and science sections but fails the general part; admitted a year later.
- 1902 · age 23Patent office in Bern
Hired as a third-class examiner after two years without an academic job.
- 1905 · age 26Annus mirabilis
Publishes four papers — the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and E=mc² — while still at the patent office.
- 1909 · age 30First professorship
University of Zurich, four years after the papers.
- 1915 · age 36General relativity
- 1919 · age 40Eclipse confirmation
Eddington's expedition verifies light bending; he becomes world-famous almost overnight.
- 1921 · age 42Nobel Prize in Physics
For the photoelectric effect, not relativity.
- 1933 · age 54Leaves Germany permanently
Emigrates to the US as the Nazis take power; joins the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
Sources
Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.