| Einstein graduated from the Aarau
school and entered the Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Around this time he recognized that physics was his true subject.
Only there could he "seek out the paths that led to the
depths." He also realized that he could never be an outstanding
student. Fortunately his friend Marcel Grossmann had the conventional
traits Einstein lacked. While Einstein worked in the library
or the laboratory, Grossmann took excellent notes at the mathematics
lectures, and gladly shared them with his friend before examinations.
Einstein later wrote, "I would rather not speculate on
what would have become of me without these notes."
Einstein grew familiar with the successes of past scientists
who had tried to explain the world entirely through atoms
or fluids, interacting like parts of a machine. But he learned
that Maxwell's theory of electricity and magnetism was defying
efforts to reduce it to mechanical processes. Through a
new friend, the engineer Michele Besso, Einstein came to
the writings of Ernst Mach -- a skeptical critic of accepted
ideas in physics.
|
Einstein with his friend Marcel Grossman
(left).
|
