Einstein House

Albert Einstein was born in Germany, but he moved to Switzerland at the age of 16. A year later, he enrolled at the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, where he met Mileva Maric, whom he married in 1903. The couple settled in Berne from 1902 to 1909, and it was in this apartment before you that Einstein developed his theory of special relativity, famously summed up by the equation E=MC², which tells us that energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. The year 1905 is often called his “annus mirabilis,” or miraculous year, as it was when he published several groundbreaking papers that made him a legendary scientist. You can step inside and visit the apartment, now a museum, where Einstein lived with Mileva and their son. You'll find period furnishings and get a glimpse into his private life through photos, films, letters and documents. After leaving Berne, the family moved to Berlin, where Einstein became a member of the Academy of Sciences. Throughout World War I, he remained committed to pacifism and openly criticised the military. In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics and countless other honours. But with the rise of Nazism, Einstein’s Jewish background put him in danger. He left for the United States, and never returned to Germany. In 1939, under pressure from two fellow physicists, Eugene Wigner and Leo Szilard, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt warning of the potential energy uranium could release. That letter sparked the Manhattan Project, the U.S. effort to develop the nuclear bomb. Einstein later said he regretted signing it for the rest of his life. He died on April 18, 1955, from a ruptured aneurysm. His wishes were respected, and his ashes were scattered in a secret location. However, his brain and eyes were removed for scientific study, against his will and testament, in the hope of uncovering the source of his extraordinary intelligence.