Einstein enrolled in the Zurich Polytechnic in October
1896, although he was still six months short of the official minimum
age of 18. He participated in a four-year teachers' training
program that would qualify him as a specialized high school teacher
of mathematics and physics. He lived in student lodgings in the
bourgeois district of Hottingen, first in the apartment of Frau
Henriette Hagi and then at a small pension run by Stephanie Markwalder.
Throughout his four years of study, he lived on the modest income of
100 Swiss francs per month, most of which was provided by his maternal
grandparents, the Kochs.
Einstein's decision to enroll in a teachers' training
program may seem surprising in light of his own unhappiness as
a schoolboy in Munich; the joy he took in learning came from his
informal education at home, not from his experiences in a school
with formally trained instructors. However, his teaching course
may have been an attempt to reach a compromise with his family,
which was in financial trouble at the time. The factory run by
his father and uncle had failed in 1896 and most of the family
funds were lost. Thus, despite Einstein's desire to master the
frontiers of physics, he also recognized the importance of securing
a steady income.
Einstein did not abandon physics, however, indeed studying
it seriously in the laboratory of the head physics professor at
the Polytechnic, Heinrich Friedrich Weber, who was best known for
his contributions to electrical engineering. Yet although Einstein
admired the professor's achievements, he was distressed to learn
that Weber, a staunch believer in classical physics, was hopelessly
old- fashioned, dismissing of all the advancements in electricity
and magnetism since Helmholtz's discoveries of the 1850s. Once
again, as in high school, Einstein relied on independent study:
he read widely the works of Maxwell, Kirchoff, Hertz, Helmholtz,
and contemporary physicists. Einstein also benefited from his
studies with his mathematics lecturer, Hermann Minkowski, who would
later prove instrumental in devising a strict mathematical formalism
to support Einstein's theory of relativity.
Although Einstein did not have a large social circle in
Zurich, he made several close friends who would have a strong impact
on his future. One such friend was Marcel Grossman, a mathematics
student one year his senior. Grossman's father was a factory owner
in Zurich and Marcel was the product of a liberal Swiss environment.
Einstein viewed his friend as a model student and relied heavily
on his lecture notes whenever it came time for final examinations.
Grossman continued to come to Einstein's aid in later years,
first by helping him to secure a position at a patent office in
Bern following his graduation, and then by working on the mathematical
calculations of the general relativity theory.
Another of Einstein's closest friends was Michele Angelo
Besso, a mechanical engineer living in Zurich. Einstein met Besso
through an amateur music group in Zurich, which Einstein often
joined on Saturday afternoons to play his violin. He encouraged
Einstein to read the works of Ernst Mach, a contemporary Austrian
philosopher. Mach's empirical positivism and distrust of metaphysical
speculation would have a strong impact on Einstein's theory of
special relativity.
Finally, Einstein also became very close with Mileva Maric,
a Hungarian student three years his senior at the Zurich Polytechnic.
Mileva was not a brilliant student, but a hard and determined worker.
Although Einstein was popular with many of the women at the Polytechnic,
his relationship with Mileva became particularly intense between
the autumn of 1899 and the summer of 1900. Then, in July 1901,
not long after their graduation, Mileva informed Einstein that
she was pregnant. Einstein intended to marry her, but his parents
were vehemently opposed on the grounds that she was beneath their
social standing. Mileva's parents, in contrast, encouraged the
relationship between Einstein and their daughter, especially when
they learned that she was pregnant. When Mileva gave birth to
an illegitimate child at the end of January, 1902, Mileva's parents
took responsibility for the young Lieserl and, it is believed, soon
put her up for adoption. Although Einstein and Mileva remained
on good terms throughout the pregnancy, it was not until January
1903, when Einstein had a secure and well-paying job at the patent
office in Bern, that the couple finally married.
