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120-691: Pochhammer was born in Stendal, but grew up in Berlin. He studied mathematics and physics at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin from 1859 to 1863. He received his doctorate in 1863 from Ernst Eduard Kummer . A period of habilitation followed in 1872. For the next two years he was a lecturer in Berlin. In 1874 he became Professor at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel. After

240-600: A Hanukkah celebration. Einstein next traveled to California, where he met Caltech president and Nobel laureate Robert A. Millikan . His friendship with Millikan was "awkward", as Millikan "had a penchant for patriotic militarism", where Einstein was a pronounced pacifist . During an address to Caltech's students, Einstein noted that science was often inclined to do more harm than good. This aversion to war also led Einstein to befriend author Upton Sinclair and film star Charlie Chaplin , both noted for their pacifism. Carl Laemmle , head of Universal Studios , gave Einstein

360-449: A quarantine house for Plague at the city gates, which in 1727 was rechristened by the "soldier king" Friedrich Wilhelm: "Es soll das Haus die Charité heißen" (called Charité [French for charity ]). By 1829 the site became Friedrich Wilhelm University's medical campus and remained so until 1927 when the more modern University Hospital was constructed. The university started a natural history collection in 1810, which by 1889, required

480-508: A "resistance movement at the University of Berlin", as well as espionage, and were sentenced to 25 years of forced labor. From 1945 to 1948, 18 other students and teachers were arrested or abducted, many missing for weeks, and some were taken to the Soviet Union and executed. Many of the students targeted by Soviet persecution were active in the liberal or social democratic resistance against

600-512: A bill to parliament to extend British citizenship to Einstein, during which period Einstein made a number of public appearances describing the crisis brewing in Europe. In one of his speeches he denounced Germany's treatment of Jews, while at the same time he introduced a bill promoting Jewish citizenship in Palestine, as they were being denied citizenship elsewhere. In his speech he described Einstein as

720-459: A child several years his senior. He began teaching himself algebra, calculus and Euclidean geometry when he was twelve; he made such rapid progress that he discovered an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem before his thirteenth birthday. A family tutor, Max Talmud , said that only a short time after he had given the twelve year old Einstein a geometry textbook, the boy "had worked through

840-471: A company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current . He often related a formative event from his youth, when he was sick in bed and his father brought him a compass . This sparked his lifelong fascination with electromagnetism . He realized that "Something deeply hidden had to be behind things." Albert attended St. Peter's Catholic elementary school in Munich from the age of five. When he

960-655: A diploma handed to him by King Alfonso XIII . (His Spanish trip also gave him a chance to meet a fellow Nobel laureate, the neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal .) From 1922 until 1932, with the exception of a few months in 1923 and 1924, Einstein was a member of the Geneva-based International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations , a group set up by the League to encourage scientists, artists, scholars, teachers and other people engaged in

1080-501: A divorce on 14 February 1919 on the grounds of having lived apart for five years. As part of the divorce settlement, Einstein agreed that if he were to win a Nobel Prize, he would give the money that he received to Marić; he won the prize two years later. Einstein married Löwenthal in 1919. In 1923, he began a relationship with a secretary named Betty Neumann, the niece of his close friend Hans Mühsam. Löwenthal nevertheless remained loyal to him, accompanying him when he emigrated to

1200-526: A few months later to Pavia , where they settled in Palazzo Cornazzani . Einstein, then fifteen, stayed behind in Munich in order to finish his schooling. His father wanted him to study electrical engineering , but he was a fractious pupil who found the Gymnasium's regimen and teaching methods far from congenial. He later wrote that the school's policy of strict rote learning was harmful to creativity. At

1320-463: A gravel sorter and an electric typewriter. His employers were pleased enough with his work to make his position permanent in 1903, although they did not think that he should be promoted until he had "fully mastered machine technology". It is conceivable that his labors at the patent office had a bearing on his development of his special theory of relativity. He arrived at his revolutionary ideas about space, time and light through thought experiments about

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1440-416: A model for institutions like Johns Hopkins University . Further, it has been claimed that "the 'Humboldtian' university became a model for the rest of Europe [...] with its central principle being the union of teaching and research in the work of the individual scholar or scientist." In addition to the strong anchoring of traditional subjects, such as science, law, philosophy, history, theology and medicine,

1560-630: A much larger number of permanent assistant professors, lecturers and other middle level academic positions. After reunification, these positions were abolished or converted to temporary posts for consistency with the West German system. As a result, only 10% of the mid-level academics in Humboldt-Universität still had a position in 1998. Through the transformations, the university's research and exchange links with Eastern European institutions were maintained and stabilized. Today, Humboldt University

1680-404: A paper which laid the foundations for the concepts of both laser and maser , and contained a trove of information that would be beneficial to developments in physics later on. A joint paper in 1935, with Nathan Rosen , introduced the notion of a wormhole . In the middle part of his career, Einstein made important contributions to statistical mechanics and quantum theory. Especially notable

1800-405: A passion for work, such an interest for things that are not petty student intrigues, such an inclination for the sciences, such calm and such silence. Compared to this temple of work, the other universities appear like public houses." The university has been home to many of Germany's greatest thinkers of the past two centuries, among them the subjective idealist philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte ,

1920-646: A platform from which to promote traditional Catholic doctrine. Einstein's former physics professor Hendrik Lorentz and the Polish chemist Marie Curie were also members of the committee. In March and April 1925, Einstein and his wife visited South America, where they spent about a week in Brazil, a week in Uruguay and a month in Argentina. Their tour was suggested by Jorge Duclout (1856–1927) and Mauricio Nirenstein (1877–1935) with

2040-466: A professorial salary but with no teaching duties to burden him. Their invitation was all the more appealing to him because Berlin happened to be the home of his latest girlfriend, Elsa Löwenthal. He duly joined the Academy on 24 July 1913, and moved into an apartment in the Berlin district of Dahlem on 1 April 1914. He was installed in his Humboldt University position shortly thereafter. The outbreak of

2160-635: A result of Germany having driven the Jews out, they had lowered their "technical standards" and put the Allies ' technology ahead of theirs. Einstein later contacted leaders of other nations, including Turkey's Prime Minister, İsmet İnönü , to whom he wrote in September 1933, requesting placement of unemployed German-Jewish scientists. As a result of Einstein's letter, Jewish invitees to Turkey eventually totaled over "1,000 saved individuals". Locker-Lampson also submitted

2280-668: A separate building and became the Museum für Naturkunde . The preexisting Tierarznei School, founded in 1790 and absorbed by the university, in 1934 formed the basis of the Veterinary Medicine Facility (Grundstock der Veterinärmedizinischen Fakultät). Also the Landwirtschaftliche Hochschule Berlin (Agricultural University of Berlin), founded in 1881 was affiliated with the Agricultural Faculties of

2400-444: A subsequent letter to physicist and friend Max Born , who had already emigrated from Germany to England, Einstein wrote, "... I must confess that the degree of their brutality and cowardice came as something of a surprise." After moving to the US, he described the book burnings as a "spontaneous emotional outburst" by those who "shun popular enlightenment", and "more than anything else in

2520-596: A tour of his studio and introduced him to Chaplin. They had an instant rapport, with Chaplin inviting Einstein and his wife, Elsa, to his home for dinner. Chaplin said Einstein's outward persona, calm and gentle, seemed to conceal a "highly emotional temperament", from which came his "extraordinary intellectual energy". Chaplin's film City Lights was to premiere a few days later in Hollywood, and Chaplin invited Einstein and Elsa to join him as his special guests. Walter Isaacson , Einstein's biographer, described this as "one of

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2640-503: A visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life ... The American is friendly, self-confident, optimistic, and without envy." In 1922, Einstein's travels were to the old world rather than the new. He devoted six months to a tour of Asia that saw him speaking in Japan, Singapore and Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon ). After his first public lecture in Tokyo, he met Emperor Yoshihito and his wife at

2760-582: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Humboldt University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (German: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin , abbreviated HU Berlin ) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin , Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humboldt , Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher as

2880-487: Is a state university with a large number of students (36,986 in 2014, among them more than 4,662 foreign students) after the model of West German universities, and like its counterpart the Freie Universität Berlin . The university consists of three different campuses, namely Campus Mitte, Campus Nord and Campus Adlershof. Its main building is located in the centre of Berlin at the boulevard Unter den Linden and

3000-474: Is at least some evidence that he was influenced by her scientific ideas, but there are scholars who doubt whether her impact on his thought was of any great significance at all. Correspondence between Einstein and Marić, discovered and published in 1987, revealed that in early 1902, while Marić was visiting her parents in Novi Sad , she gave birth to a daughter, Lieserl . When Marić returned to Switzerland it

3120-513: Is divided into nine faculties including its medical school shared with the Freie Universität Berlin. The university has a student enrollment of around 35,000 students, and offers degree programs in some 171 disciplines from undergraduate to post-doctorate level. Its main campus is located on the Unter den Linden boulevard in central Berlin. The university is known worldwide for pioneering

3240-536: Is the heart of Campus Mitte. The building was erected on order by King Frederick II for his younger brother Prince Henry of Prussia . All the institutes of humanities are located around the main building together with the Department of Law and the Department of Business and Economics. Campus Nord is located north of the main building close to Berlin Hauptbahnhof and is the home of the life science departments including

3360-568: The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) anymore since 2008. In the 2023 QS Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks first in Germany in the arts and humanities and the social sciences. In the 2024 THE Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks second in Germany in the arts and humanities, law, psychology, and social sciences. In the 2023 ARWU Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks first in Germany in geography. Measured by

3480-622: The Brothers Grimm . The main building of Humboldt-Universität is the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais (English: Prince Henry's Palace ) on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic centre of Berlin . It was erected from 1748 to 1753 for Prince Henry of Prussia , the brother of Frederick the Great , according to plans by Johann Boumann in Baroque style . In 1809, the former Royal Prussian residence

3600-479: The ETH Zurich , to take up a chair in theoretical physics. His teaching activities there centred on thermodynamics and analytical mechanics, and his research interests included the molecular theory of heat, continuum mechanics and the development of a relativistic theory of gravitation. In his work on the latter topic, he was assisted by his friend, Marcel Grossmann, whose knowledge of the kind of mathematics required

3720-623: The First World War in July 1914 marked the beginning of Einstein's gradual estrangement from the nation of his birth. When the " Manifesto of the Ninety-Three " was published in October 1914—a document signed by a host of prominent German thinkers that justified Germany's belligerence—Einstein was one of the few German intellectuals to distance himself from it and sign the alternative, eirenic " Manifesto to

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3840-587: The German reunification , the university was radically restructured under the Structure and Appointment Commissions, which were presided by West German professors. For departments on social sciences and humanities, the faculty was subjected to a "liquidation" process, in which contracts of employees were terminated and positions were made open to new academics, mainly West Germans. Older professors were offered early retirement. The East German higher education system included

3960-980: The Humboldtian model of higher education , which has strongly influenced other European and Western universities. It was generally regarded as the world's preeminent university for the natural sciences during the 19th and early 20th century, as the university is linked to major breakthroughs in physics and other sciences by its professors, such as Albert Einstein . Past and present faculty and notable alumni include 57 Nobel Prize laureates (the most of any German university), as well as scholars and academics including Albert Einstein , Hermann von Helmholtz , Emil du Bois-Reymond , Robert Koch , Theodor Mommsen , Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Otto von Bismarck , W. E. B. Du Bois , Arthur Schopenhauer , Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Walter Benjamin , Max Weber , Georg Simmel , Karl Liebknecht , Ernst Cassirer , Heinrich Heine , Eduard Fraenkel , Max Planck , Wernher von Braun and

4080-620: The Imperial Palace , with thousands of spectators thronging the streets in the hope of catching a glimpse of him. (In a letter to his sons, he wrote that Japanese people seemed to him to be generally modest, intelligent and considerate, and to have a true appreciation of art. But his picture of them in his diary was less flattering: "[the] intellectual needs of this nation seem to be weaker than their artistic ones – natural disposition?" His journal also contains views of China and India which were uncomplimentary. Of Chinese people, he wrote that "even

4200-734: The Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin , becoming director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in 1917. In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Horrified by the Nazi persecution of his fellow Jews, Einstein decided to remain in the US. On the eve of World War II , he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to

4320-832: The University of Berlin ( Universität zu Berlin ) in 1809, and opened in 1810. From 1828 until its closure in 1945, it was named the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin (German: Königliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin ). During the Cold War , the university found itself in  East Berlin and was de facto split in two when the Free University of Berlin opened in West Berlin . The university received its current name in honour of Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1949. The university

4440-530: The University of Bonn , the University of Berlin was established by King Friedrich Wilhelm III on 16 August 1809, during the period of the Prussian Reform Movement , on the initiative of the liberal Prussian philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt . The university was located in a palace constructed from 1748 to 1766 for the late Prince Henry , the younger brother of Frederick the Great . After his widow and her ninety-member staff moved out,

4560-655: The University of Vienna . Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( / ˈ aɪ n s t aɪ n / , EYEN -styne ; German: [ˈalbɛʁt ˈʔaɪnʃtaɪn] ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely held as one of the most influential scientists . Best known for developing the theory of relativity , Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics . His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc , which arises from special relativity , has been called "the world's most famous equation". He received

4680-412: The 1920s to 1930s, renowned Jewish orientalist Eugen Mittwoch was director of the school, before being forced to emigrate to London after Kristallnacht in 1938. Friedrich Wilhelm University became an emulated model of a modern university in the 19th century. After 1933, like all German universities, Friedrich Wilhelm University was impacted by the Nazi regime . The rector during this period

4800-650: The 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics . Born in the German Empire , Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, and at the age of seventeen he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss federal polytechnic school . In 1903, he secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office . In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich . In 1914, he moved to Berlin to join

4920-474: The British High Commissioner, welcomed him with a degree of ceremony normally only accorded to a visiting head of state, including a cannon salute. One reception held in his honor was stormed by people determined to hear him speak: he told them that he was happy that Jews were beginning to be recognized as a force in the world. Einstein's decision to tour the eastern hemisphere in 1922 meant that he

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5040-633: The British capital to meet several people prominent in British scientific, political or intellectual life, and to deliver a lecture at King's College . In July 1921, he published an essay, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", in which he sought to sketch the American character, much as had Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America (1835). He wrote of his transatlantic hosts in highly approving terms: "What strikes

5160-616: The Century . Albert Einstein was born in Ulm , in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on 14 March 1879. His parents, secular Ashkenazi Jews , were Hermann Einstein , a salesman and engineer, and Pauline Koch . In 1880, the family moved to Munich 's borough of Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt , where Einstein's father and his uncle Jakob founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie,

5280-602: The Europeans " instead. However, this expression of his doubts about German policy did not prevent him from being elected to a two-year term as president of the German Physical Society in 1916. When the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics opened its doors the following year—its foundation delayed because of the war—Einstein was appointed its first director, just as Planck and Nernst had promised. Einstein

5400-472: The German Kingdom of Württemberg in order to avoid conscription into military service . The Matura (graduation for the successful completion of higher secondary schooling), awarded to him in September 1896, acknowledged him to have performed well across most of the curriculum, allotting him a top grade of 6 for history, physics, algebra, geometry, and descriptive geometry. At seventeen, he enrolled in

5520-637: The German consulate and surrendered his passport, formally renouncing his German citizenship. The Nazis later sold his boat and converted his cottage into a Hitler Youth camp. In April 1933, Einstein discovered that the new German government had passed laws barring Jews from holding any official positions , including teaching at universities. Historian Gerald Holton describes how, with "virtually no audible protest being raised by their colleagues", thousands of Jewish scientists were suddenly forced to give up their university positions and their names were removed from

5640-539: The Mathematical Seminar was founded at the same university in 1877, a second chair for mathematics was established with the appointment of Pochhammer as full professor. On 22 May 1877, regulations for the mathematical seminar at the Royal University in Kiel were issued. Along with the German mathematician and astronomer Georg Daniel Eduard Weyer, Pochhammer was appointed one of the directors of the seminar. In

5760-743: The Nobel award, the Royal Society 's Copley Medal , was not hung around Einstein's neck until 1925. He was elected an International Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1930. Einstein resigned from the Prussian Academy in March 1933. His accomplishments in Berlin had included the completion of the general theory of relativity, proving the Einstein–de Haas effect , contributing to

5880-549: The Nobel citation displayed a degree of doubt even about the work on photoelectricity that it acknowledged: it did not assent to Einstein's notion of the particulate nature of light, which only won over the entire scientific community when S. N. Bose derived the Planck spectrum in 1924. That same year, Einstein was elected an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Britain's closest equivalent of

6000-535: The Oriental Seminary) to prepare public servants for posting to Kamerun (later Cameroon ), then part of the German colonial empire . Various Asian languages were taught there, and in 1890, there were 115 students, which belonged to various faculties, including law; philosophy, medicine and physical sciences; and theology (as part of their training to be missionaries). Teachers included Hermann Nekes  [ de ] (1909–1915) and Heinrich Vieter . In

6120-832: The Parish of Roughton, Norfolk . To protect Einstein, Locker-Lampson had two bodyguards watch over him; a photo of them carrying shotguns and guarding Einstein was published in the Daily Herald on 24 July 1933. Locker-Lampson took Einstein to meet Winston Churchill at his home, and later, Austen Chamberlain and former Prime Minister Lloyd George . Einstein asked them to help bring Jewish scientists out of Germany. British historian Martin Gilbert notes that Churchill responded immediately, and sent his friend, physicist Frederick Lindemann , to Germany to seek out Jewish scientists and place them in British universities. Churchill later observed that as

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6240-406: The Soviet-imposed communist dictatorship. The German communist party had long regarded the social democrats as their main enemies, dating back to the early days of the Weimar Republic. During the Berlin Blockade , the Freie Universität Berlin was established as a de facto western successor in West Berlin in 1948, with support from the United States, and retaining traditions and faculty members of

6360-464: The Sun that took place on 29 May 1919 provided an opportunity to put his theory of gravitational lensing to the test, and observations performed by Sir Arthur Eddington yielded results that were consistent with his calculations. Eddington's work was reported at length in newspapers around the world. On 7 November 1919, for example, the leading British newspaper, The Times , printed a banner headline that read: "Revolution in Science – New Theory of

6480-500: The Swiss authorities deemed him medically unfit for military service. He found that Swiss schools too appeared to have no use for him, failing to offer him a teaching position despite the almost two years that he spent applying for one. Eventually it was with the help of Marcel Grossmann 's father that he secured a post in Bern at the Swiss Patent Office , as an assistant examiner – level III . Patent applications that landed on Einstein's desk for his evaluation included ideas for

6600-600: The United States in 1933. In 1935, she was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems. She died in December 1936. A volume of Einstein's letters released by Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2006 added further names to the catalog of women with whom he was romantically involved. They included Margarete Lebach (a married Austrian), Estella Katzenellenbogen (the rich owner of a florist business), Toni Mendel (a wealthy Jewish widow) and Ethel Michanowski (a Berlin socialite), with whom he spent time and from whom he accepted gifts while married to Löwenthal. After being widowed, Einstein

6720-470: The United States, drawn back to the US by the offer of a two month research fellowship at the California Institute of Technology . Caltech supported him in his wish that he should not be exposed to quite as much attention from the media as he had experienced when visiting the US in 1921, and he therefore declined all the invitations to receive prizes or make speeches that his admirers poured down upon him. But he remained willing to allow his fans at least some of

6840-472: The Universe – Newtonian Ideas Overthrown". With Eddington's eclipse observations widely reported not just in academic journals but by the popular press as well, Einstein became "perhaps the world's first celebrity scientist", a genius who had shattered a paradigm that had been basic to physicists' understanding of the universe since the seventeenth century. Einstein began his new life as an intellectual icon in America, where he arrived on 2 April 1921. He

6960-490: The University of Zurich, much admired by Alfred Kleiner, led to Zürich's luring him away from Bern with a newly created associate professorship. Promotion to a full professorship followed in April 1911, when he accepted a chair at the German Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, a move which required him to become an Austrian citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . His time in Prague saw him producing eleven research papers. In July 1912, he returned to his alma mater ,

7080-429: The advice of the polytechnic's principal, he completed his secondary education at the Argovian cantonal school (a gymnasium ) in Aarau , Switzerland, graduating in 1896. While lodging in Aarau with the family of Jost Winteler , he fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie. (His sister, Maja , later married Winteler's son Paul. ) In January 1896, with his father's approval, Einstein renounced his citizenship of

7200-426: The care of his mother or in temporary confinement in an asylum. After her death, he was committed permanently to Burghölzli , the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zürich. Einstein graduated from the federal polytechnic school in 1900, duly certified as competent to teach mathematics and physics. His successful acquisition of Swiss citizenship in February 1901 was not followed by the usual sequel of conscription ;

7320-405: The center of the square. It consists of a glass panel embedded in the pavement that looks into a large, subterranean white room with empty shelf space for 20,000 volumes, along with a plaque bearing an epigraph taken from an 1820 work by the great German-Jewish writer Heinrich Heine : " Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen. " ("This

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7440-423: The children are spiritless and look obtuse... It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races. For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably dreary". ) He was greeted with even greater enthusiasm on the last leg of his tour, in which he spent twelve days in Mandatory Palestine , newly entrusted to British rule by the League of Nations in the aftermath of the First World War. Sir Herbert Samuel ,

7560-439: The collection was relocated to the building of the Berlin State Library . During the Weimar Period the library contained 831,934 volumes (1930) and was thus one of the leading university libraries in Germany at that time. During the Nazi book burnings in 1933, no volumes from the university library were destroyed. The loss through World War II was comparatively small. In 2003, natural science-related books were outhoused to

7680-487: The date of its opening. In 1810, at the time of the opening, the university established the first academic chair in the field of history in the world. From 1828 to 1945, the school was named the "Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin", in honor of its founder. Ludwig Feuerbach , then one of the students, made a comment about the university in 1826: "There is no question here of drinking, duelling and pleasant communal outings; in no other university can you find such

7800-416: The end of December 1894, a letter from a doctor persuaded the Luitpold's authorities to release him from its care, and he joined his family in Pavia. While in Italy as a teenager, he wrote an essay entitled "On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field". Einstein excelled at physics and mathematics from an early age, and soon acquired the mathematical expertise normally only found in

7920-419: The fall of 1915, his reimagining of the mathematics of gravitation in terms of Riemannian geometry was complete, and he applied his new theory not just to the behavior of the Sun as a gravitational lens but also to another astronomical phenomenon, the precession of the perihelion of Mercury (a slow drift in the point in Mercury's elliptical orbit at which it approaches the Sun most closely). A total eclipse of

8040-422: The field exists. In 1911, he used the principle to estimate the amount by which a ray of light from a distant star would be bent by the gravitational pull of the Sun as it passed close to the Sun's photosphere (that is, the Sun's apparent surface). He reworked his calculation in 1913, having now found a way to model gravitation with the Riemann curvature tensor of a non-Euclidean four-dimensional spacetime . By

8160-537: The first unofficial lectures were given in the building in the winter of 1809. Humboldt faced great resistance to his ideas as he set up the university. He submitted his resignation to the King in April 1810, and was not present when the school opened that fall. The first students were admitted on 6 October 1810, and the first semester started on 10 October 1810, with 256 students and 52 lecturers in faculties of law, medicine, theology and philosophy under rector Theodor Schmalz. The university celebrates 15 October 1810 as

8280-468: The four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the federal polytechnic school. Marie Winteler, a year older than him, took up a teaching post in Olsberg , Switzerland. The five other polytechnic school freshmen following the same course as Einstein included just one woman, a twenty year old Serbian , Mileva Marić . Over the next few years, the pair spent many hours discussing their shared interests and learning about topics in physics that

8400-481: The life of the mind to work more closely with their counterparts in other countries. He was appointed as a German delegate rather than as a representative of Switzerland because of the machinations of two Catholic activists, Oskar Halecki and Giuseppe Motta . By persuading Secretary General Eric Drummond to deny Einstein the place on the committee reserved for a Swiss thinker, they created an opening for Gonzague de Reynold , who used his League of Nations position as

8520-635: The months before Eduard's arrival, he described his love for his wife as "misguided" and mourned the "missed life" that he imagined he would have enjoyed if he had married Winteler instead: "I think of you in heartfelt love every spare minute and am so unhappy as only a man can be." In 1912, Einstein entered into a relationship with Elsa Löwenthal , who was both his first cousin on his mother's side and his second cousin on his father's. When Marić learned of his infidelity soon after moving to Berlin with him in April 1914, she returned to Zürich, taking Hans Albert and Eduard with her. Einstein and Marić were granted

8640-449: The most memorable scenes in the new era of celebrity". Chaplin visited Einstein at his home on a later trip to Berlin and recalled his "modest little flat" and the piano at which he had begun writing his theory. Chaplin speculated that it was "possibly used as kindling wood by the Nazis". In February 1933, while on a visit to the United States, Einstein knew he could not return to Germany with

8760-663: The national level. Additionally, in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2024, it was placed at 87th worldwide and 4th within the country. Because of an unresolved dispute over the counting of Nobel laureates before the Second World War – both Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin claim to be the rightful successor of the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin – both do not appear in

8880-514: The newly founded library at the Adlershof campus, which is dedicated solely to the natural sciences. Since the premises of the State Library had to be cleared in 2005, a new library building was erected close to the main building in the center of Berlin. The "Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm-Zentrum" (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre, Grimm Zentrum, or GZ as referred to by students) opened in 2009. In total,

9000-446: The number of top managers in the German economy, Humboldt-Universität ranked 53rd in 2019. In 2020, the American U.S. News & World Report listed Humboldt-Universität as the 82nd best in the world, climbing eight positions, being among the 100 best in the world in 17 areas out of 29 ranked. HU students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions such as the University of Warwick , Princeton University , and

9120-562: The old Friedrich Wilhelm University. The name of the Free University refers to West Berlin's perceived status as part of the Western " free world ", in contrast to the "unfree" Communist world in general and the "unfree" communist-controlled university in East Berlin in particular. Because the historical name, the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, had monarchic origins, the school

9240-472: The opportunity, for example, "to train to become second-class doctors." In 1895 he was promoted to "Geheimer Regierungsrat", an unpaid governor position and a title of honour. From 1876 to 1914 he taught part-time at the Naval Academy and School (Kiel) . He died just a few months after his retirement in 1919. Successor to the second chair was Otto Toeplitz . This article about a German mathematician

9360-424: The phenomena of capillarity"), in which he proposed a model of intermolecular attraction that he afterwards disavowed as worthless, was published in the journal Annalen der Physik in 1901. His 24-page doctoral dissertation also addressed a topic in molecular physics. Titled "Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen" ("A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions") and dedicated to his friend Marcel Grossman, it

9480-603: The physicians Johannes Peter Müller , Emil du Bois-Reymond , Albrecht von Graefe , Rudolf Virchow , and Robert Koch , contributed to Berlin University's scientific fame. During this period of enlargement, the university gradually expanded to incorporate other previously separate colleges in Berlin. An example would be the Charité , the Pépinière and the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum. In 1710, King Friedrich I had built

9600-428: The polytechnic school's lectures did not cover. In his letters to Marić, Einstein confessed that exploring science with her by his side was much more enjoyable than reading a textbook in solitude. Eventually the two students became not only friends but also lovers. Historians of physics are divided on the question of the extent to which Marić contributed to the insights of Einstein's annus mirabilis publications. There

9720-454: The potential German nuclear weapons program and recommended that the US begin similar research , though he generally viewed the idea of nuclear weapons with great dismay. In 1905, he published four groundbreaking papers , sometimes described as his annus mirabilis (miracle year). These papers outlined a theory of the photoelectric effect, explained Brownian motion , introduced his special theory of relativity, and demonstrated that if

9840-450: The president of Columbia University , who described Einstein as "the ruling monarch of the mind". Harry Emerson Fosdick , pastor at New York's Riverside Church , gave Einstein a tour of the church and showed him a full-size statue that the church made of Einstein, standing at the entrance. Also during his stay in New York, he joined a crowd of 15,000 people at Madison Square Garden during

9960-409: The quantum theory of radiation, and the development of Bose–Einstein statistics . In 1907, Einstein reached a milestone on his long journey from his special theory of relativity to a new idea of gravitation with the formulation of his equivalence principle , which asserts that an observer in an infinitesimally small box falling freely in a gravitational field would be unable to find any evidence that

10080-608: The rise to power of the Nazis under Germany's new chancellor, Adolf Hitler . While at American universities in early 1933, he undertook his third two-month visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In February and March 1933, the Gestapo repeatedly raided his family's apartment in Berlin. He and his wife Elsa returned to Europe in March, and during

10200-482: The rolls of institutions where they were employed. A month later, Einstein's works were among those targeted by the German Student Union in the Nazi book burnings , with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels proclaiming, "Jewish intellectualism is dead." One German magazine included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet hanged", offering a $ 5,000 bounty on his head. In

10320-408: The special theory is correct, mass and energy are equivalent to each other. In 1915, he proposed a general theory of relativity that extended his system of mechanics to incorporate gravitation . A cosmological paper that he published the following year laid out the implications of general relativity for the modeling of the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. In 1917, Einstein wrote

10440-606: The staff were fired by the Nazis. It was from the university's library that some 20,000 books by " degenerates " and opponents of the regime were taken to be burned on 10 May of that year in the Opernplatz square (now called the Bebelplatz ) for a demonstration that was protected by the SA and featured a speech by Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels . A monument to this tragic event called The Empty Library can now be found in

10560-608: The support of several Argentine scholars, including Julio Rey Pastor , Jakob Laub , and Leopoldo Lugones . and was financed primarily by the Council of the University of Buenos Aires and the Asociación Hebraica Argentina (Argentine Hebraic Association) with a smaller contribution from the Argentine-Germanic Cultural Institution. In December 1930, Einstein began another significant sojourn in

10680-482: The theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher , the absolute idealist philosopher G.W.F. Hegel , the Romantic legal theorist Friedrich Carl von Savigny , the anti-optimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer , the objective idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling , cultural critic Walter Benjamin , and famous physicists Albert Einstein and Max Planck . The founders of Marxist theory Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attended

10800-593: The time he was still a child, only thirteen years old, yet Kant's works, incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, seemed to be clear to him." In 1895, at the age of sixteen, Einstein sat the entrance examination for the federal polytechnic school (later the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. He failed to reach the required standard in the general part of the test, but performed with distinction in physics and mathematics. On

10920-543: The time with him that they requested. After arriving in New York City, Einstein was taken to various places and events, including Chinatown , a lunch with the editors of The New York Times , and a performance of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera , where he was cheered by the audience on his arrival. During the days following, he was given the keys to the city by Mayor Jimmy Walker and met Nicholas Murray Butler ,

11040-909: The transmission of signals and the synchronization of clocks, matters which also figured in some of the inventions submitted to him for assessment. In 1902, Einstein and some friends whom he had met in Bern formed a group that held regular meetings to discuss science and philosophy. Their choice of a name for their club, the Olympia Academy , was an ironic comment upon its far from Olympian status. Sometimes they were joined by Marić, who limited her participation in their proceedings to careful listening. The thinkers whose works they reflected upon included Henri Poincaré , Ernst Mach and David Hume , all of whom significantly influenced Einstein's own subsequent ideas and beliefs. Einstein's first paper, "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen" ("Conclusions drawn from

11160-570: The trip, they learned that the German Reichstag had passed the Enabling Act on 23 March, transforming Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship, and that they would not be able to proceed to Berlin. Later on, they heard that their cottage had been raided by the Nazis and Einstein's personal sailboat confiscated. Upon landing in Antwerp , Belgium on 28 March, Einstein immediately went to

11280-525: The university after its founder's death. However, these terms were ignored. In 2001, the university acquired the Archive for Sexology from the Robert Koch Institute, which was founded with a large private library donated by Erwin J. Haeberle . This has now been housed at the new Magnus Hirschfeld Center. According to the 2024 QS World University Rankings , the university ranked 120th globally and 7th at

11400-477: The university developed to encompass numerous new scientific disciplines. Alexander von Humboldt , brother of the founder William, promoted the new learning. The construction of modern research facilities in the second half of the 19th century aided the teaching of the natural sciences. Famous researchers, such as the chemist August Wilhelm Hofmann , the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz , the mathematicians Ernst Eduard Kummer , Leopold Kronecker , Karl Weierstrass ,

11520-572: The university library contains about 6.5 million volumes and 9,000 held magazines and journals, and is one of the biggest university libraries in Germany. The books of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were destroyed during the Nazi book burnings, and the institute destroyed. Under the terms of the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation, the government had agreed to continue the work of the institute at

11640-468: The university medical center Charité . The natural sciences, together with computer science and mathematics, are located at Campus Adlershof in the south-east of Berlin. Furthermore, the university continues its tradition of a book sale at the university gates facing Bebelplatz. The university is divided ino 9 faculties: Graduate schools provide structured PhD programmes: Furthermore, there are four central institutes ( Zentralinstitute ) that are part of

11760-473: The university, as did poet Heinrich Heine , novelist Alfred Döblin , founder of structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure , German unifier Otto von Bismarck , Communist Party of Germany founder Karl Liebknecht , African American Pan Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois and European unifier Robert Schuman , as well as the influential surgeon Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach in the early half of the 1800s. The structure of German research-intensive universities served as

11880-462: The university, requiring lectures to be submitted for approval by Socialist Unity Party officials, and piped Soviet propaganda into the cafeteria. This led to strong protests within the student body and faculty. NKVD secret police arrested a number of students in March 1947 as a response. The Soviet Military Tribunal in Berlin-Lichtenberg ruled the students were involved in the formation of

12000-681: The university. In August 1870, in a speech delivered on the eve of war with France, Emil du Bois-Reymond proclaimed that "the University of Berlin, quartered opposite the King's palace, is, by the deed of our foundation, the intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern (das geistige Leibregiment des Hauses Hohenzollern)." In 1887, chancellor Otto Bismarck established the Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen  [ de ] (SOS), (usually known in English as

12120-470: The university: Each year, students elect the student parliament ( Studierendenparlament ), which serves as the body of student representatives under German law ( AStA ). When the Royal Library proved insufficient, a new library was founded in 1831, first located in several temporary sites. In 1871–1874 a library building was constructed, following the design of architect Paul Emanuel Spieker. In 1910

12240-635: The whole book. He thereupon devoted himself to higher mathematics ... Soon the flight of his mathematical genius was so high I could not follow." Einstein recorded that he had "mastered integral and differential calculus " while still just fourteen. His love of algebra and geometry was so great that at twelve, he was already confident that nature could be understood as a "mathematical structure". At thirteen, when his range of enthusiasms had broadened to include music and philosophy, Talmud introduced Einstein to Kant 's Critique of Pure Reason . Kant became his favorite philosopher; according to Talmud, "At

12360-518: The world, fear the influence of men of intellectual independence". Einstein was now without a permanent home, unsure where he would live and work, and equally worried about the fate of countless other scientists still in Germany. Aided by the Academic Assistance Council , founded in April 1933 by British Liberal politician William Beveridge to help academics escape Nazi persecution, Einstein

12480-415: The world, objecting that "God does not play dice". Second, he attempted to devise a unified field theory by generalizing his geometric theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism . As a result, he became increasingly isolated from the mainstream modern physics . His intellectual achievements and originality made Einstein broadly synonymous with genius . In 1999, he was named Time 's Person of

12600-420: The year being celebrated as an annus mirabilis for physics akin to 1666 (the year in which Isaac Newton experienced his greatest epiphanies). The publications deeply impressed Einstein's contemporaries. Einstein's sabbatical as a civil servant approached its end in 1908, when he secured a junior teaching position at the University of Bern . In 1909, a lecture on relativistic electrodynamics that he gave at

12720-499: The years 1893/94 he was rector of the university. In his rectorate speech on March 6, 1893, he made a "contribution to the question of university studies for women". He advocated offering women and girls more educational opportunities as at that time women were not allowed to enter university in Germany, but largely denied their aptitude and interest in university studies. Therefore, in his opinion, women's colleges with simplified entry requirements should be created and women should be given

12840-575: Was Eugen Fischer . The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (German "Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums") resulted in 250 Jewish professors and employees being fired from the university during 1933–1934, as well as numerous doctorates being withdrawn. Students and scholars, and other political opponents of Nazis, were ejected from the university and often deported. During this time nearly one third of all of

12960-516: Was able to leave Germany. He rented a house in De Haan, Belgium, where he lived for a few months. In late July 1933, he visited England for about six weeks at the invitation of the British Member of Parliament Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson , who had become friends with him in the preceding years. Locker-Lampson invited him to stay near his Cromer home in a secluded wooden cabin on Roughton Heath in

13080-515: Was briefly in a relationship with Margarita Konenkova, thought by some to be a Russian spy; her husband, the Russian sculptor Sergei Konenkov , created the bronze bust of Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Following an episode of acute mental illness at about the age of twenty, Einstein's son Eduard was diagnosed with schizophrenia . He spent the remainder of his life either in

13200-574: Was but a prelude; where they burn books, they ultimately burn people"). During the Cold War , the university was located in East Berlin . It reopened in 1946 as the University of Berlin, but faced repression from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany , including the persecution of liberal and social democrat students. Almost immediately, the Soviet occupiers started persecuting non-communists and suppressing academic freedom at

13320-401: Was completed on 30 April 1905 and approved by Professor Alfred Kleiner of the University of Zurich three months later. (Einstein was formally awarded his PhD on 15 January 1906.) Four other pieces of work that Einstein completed in 1905— his famous papers on the photoelectric effect , Brownian motion , his special theory of relativity and the equivalence of mass and energy —have led to

13440-626: Was converted into a university building. Damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II , it was rebuilt from 1949 to 1962. In 1967, eight statues from the destroyed Potsdam City Palace were placed on the side wings of the university building. Currently there is discussion about returning the statues to the Potsdam City Palace, which was rebuilt as the Landtag of Brandenburg in 2013. Similar to

13560-641: Was eight, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium , where he received advanced primary and then secondary school education. In 1894, Hermann and Jakob's company tendered for a contract to install electric lighting in Munich, but without success—they lacked the capital that would have been required to update their technology from direct current to the more efficient, alternating current alternative. The failure of their bid forced them to sell their Munich factory and search for new opportunities elsewhere. The Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and

13680-540: Was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1920, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1921 . In 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". At this point some physicists still regarded the general theory of relativity skeptically, and

13800-438: Was greater than his own. In the spring of 1913, two German visitors, Max Planck and Walther Nernst , called upon Einstein in Zürich in the hope of persuading him to relocate to Berlin. They offered him membership of the Prussian Academy of Sciences , the directorship of the planned Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics and a chair at the Humboldt University of Berlin that would allow him to pursue his research supported by

13920-502: Was his work on the quantum physics of radiation , in which light consists of particles, subsequently called photons . With the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose , he laid the groundwork for Bose-Einstein statistics . For much of the last phase of his academic life, Einstein worked on two endeavors that proved ultimately unsuccessful. First, he advocated against quantum theory's introduction of fundamental randomness into science's picture of

14040-518: Was officially renamed in 1949. Although the Soviet occupational authorities preferred to name the school after a communist leader, university leaders were able to name it the "Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin", after the two Humboldt brothers, a name that was also uncontroversial in the West and capitalized on the fame of the Humboldt name, which is associated with the Humboldtian model of higher education . After

14160-527: Was unable to go to Stockholm in the December of that year to participate in the Nobel prize ceremony. His place at the traditional Nobel banquet was taken by a German diplomat, who gave a speech praising him not only as a physicist but also as a campaigner for peace. A two-week visit to Spain that he undertook in 1923 saw him collecting another award, a membership of the Spanish Academy of Sciences signified by

14280-597: Was welcomed to New York City by Mayor John Francis Hylan , and then spent three weeks giving lectures and attending receptions. He spoke several times at Columbia University and Princeton , and in Washington, he visited the White House with representatives of the National Academy of Sciences . He returned to Europe via London, where he was the guest of the philosopher and statesman Viscount Haldane . He used his time in

14400-515: Was without the child, whose fate is uncertain. A letter of Einstein's that he wrote in September 1903 suggests that the girl was either given up for adoption or died of scarlet fever in infancy. Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, their son Hans Albert was born in Bern , Switzerland. Their son Eduard was born in Zürich in July 1910. In letters that Einstein wrote to Marie Winteler in

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