Albert Einstein was chosen as the most significant person of the 20th century by Time Magazine and is probably the most popular scientist ever. Born in Ulm in Germany on 14 March 1879, Einstein grew up in Munich. He then moved to Switzerland in 1895 where he studied at what is now the ETH in Zurich. In 1901, he became a Swiss citizen. In 1905, at the age of twenty-six, he began his remarkable career while employed at the
Federal Office for Intellectual Property
(now the IPI) in Bern. He published five ground-breaking papers during what is known as his "annus mirabilis". By the age of 30, he was a professor in Zurich. Seven years later, he went on to publish his famous general theory of relativity. In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum theory, and in 1933 he was made a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in the United States, where he continued to work for the rest of his life. He died in 1955. Einstein not only changed the world view of physics, he also made a name for himself through his activism for international understanding and peace.