Which university awarded Albert Einstein his PhD in 1905?

The University of Zurich awarded Albert Einstein his PhD in 1905. His dissertation examined the determination of molecular dimensions, a subject in molecular physics.

Einstein completed the dissertation while working at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. He submitted it to the University of Zurich in 1905, the same extraordinary year in which he published landmark papers on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, special relativity, and mass–energy equivalence. The university formally awarded the doctorate in January 1906.

Einstein’s earlier higher education took place at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, now ETH Zurich, where he studied mathematics and physics and graduated in 1900. That institution is often confused with the University of Zurich, but it did not award his doctorate.

His PhD was not for the theory of relativity. The dissertation focused on molecular measurements and helped establish Einstein’s early reputation in statistical and molecular physics. His 1905 papers, rather than the doctorate alone, made that year famous as his “miracle year.”