Albert Einstein: "Inaugural Lecture [to the Prussian Academy of Sciences]". Originally published in: Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin). Sitzungsberichte (1914): 739-742.

Archival Call No. 1-1.

Published in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 6, Doc. 3, pp. 19-24.

Original (German)	Translation (English)	Full Resolution

Although he was born in the German town of Ulm in 1879, Einstein developed a strong dislike of German militarism which he encountered at school in Munich. Einstein renounced his German citizenship at the age of 16 when he emigrated to Switzerland. He eventually became a Swiss citizen. Following his studies in physics at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Einstein initially failed to secure an academic position. After seven years of work at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern and the publication of his four ground-breaking papers in his miracle year, 1905, Einstein finally obtained an academic appointment at the University of Bern. Following subsequent academic positions in Prague and Zurich, Einstein was offered a prestigious appointment at the University of Berlin and was inducted into the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In his inaugural address, Einstein expressed his deep gratitude to the Academy for the opportunities which such a position brought with it. Einstein also outlined a clear distinction between the work of theoretical physicists such as himself who explored the validity of abstract principles in nature, and their colleagues, the experimental physicists. In conclusion, Einstein alluded to his own work he was engaged in at the time, namely his application of the theory of relativity to gravitation. This work eventually became known as the general theory of relativity.