Genius Day – March 14, 2025

History of Genius Day

On March 14, 1879, in a small town in Württemberg, Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch birthed a baby boy they named Albert. Young Einstein attended school in Munich, Aarau, and Zurich. The Swiss citizen earned his teaching diploma in Mathematics and Physics in 1901 and received his doctorate in 1905, the same year he published four groundbreaking papers that went on to earn him high regard among his peers.

By 1914, he became a professor in Berlin, and a German citizen. He taught at several universities in Zurich, Prague, and Bern, whilst he continued with his research, and his remarkable work in the field of physics continued to gain him respect in the academic world. In 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his unparalleled contribution to the discipline. On the precipice of the Second World War, Einstein who was visiting the United States of America realized that he could no longer return to Germany. He renounced his citizenship in 1933 at the German Consulate in Belgium and spent the subsequent months attempting to relocate the many German-Jewish Scientists who had lost their place in German academia.

Einstein ultimately accepted an offer to teach at Princeton, U.S., as a resident scholar, which he did until 1945, gaining American citizenship five years before he left. He remained affiliated with the university until he died in 1955. Einstein’s legacy lives on in modern physics.