In Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer about the “father of the atomic bomb,” the figure of Albert Einstein plays an important supporting role. Several times and at crucial points in the film, J. Robert Oppenheimer seeks the advice of and exchanges ideas with Albert Einstein. Only about the first encounter between the two the film tells nothing.
ETH ZURICH UNIVERSITY ARCHIVE
Carl Gustav Jung’s letters to Freud revisited
Precious letters from the early days of the psychoanalytical movement online
Both correspondents are luminaries and their importance for clinical psychology is vast. We are talking about the founder of analytical psychology, Carl Gustav Jung, and Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. From 1906 they spent seven years communicating regularly on a personal and academic level – until they parted ways in 1914.
Collecting in Nazi-Germany – Max Bänninger and his Beetles
Max Bänninger’s collection of beetles is one of the most valuable – because very well documented and broad – and internationally renowned in the ETH entomological holdings. The bulk of his collection was acquired in Germany.
He who looks shall find: letters to and from Carl Gustav Jung in the ETH Zurich University Archives
With whom did Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, correspond? Over 32,000 letters, carbons, transcripts and copies from six decades are now described in the ETH Zurich University Archives database and can be searched for online.
Mittelholzer’s Double
Recently while researching an image of Arnold Heim with an Orang Utan I came across the first journal of Heim’s expedition to Sumatra in 1928. To my surprise in the journal there was a photograph showing a doppelganger of the Swiss pilot Walter Mittelholzer. Mere two years ago in 1926 Arnold Heim had been on a trip to
“I, Hedwig Delpy” The first woman to complete a doctorate at ETH Zurich
No sooner had a new regulation enabling the Federal Polytechnic School (now ETH Zurich) to award doctorates come into force on 1 October 1909 than half a dozen applications were submitted. The final of these first six was from a woman.
The construction of the Gotthard railway – the southern access route to the Gotthard tunnel
Those who are allowed to make drawings for the Gotthard line here in the open air in 1875 should themselves lucky! The tunnel workers toiled in the often far too stuffy pits in the north and south. The construction company Favre allows this and numerous other
Freethinker dismissed – Hans Bernoulli on his 140th birthday
A nasty Christmas surprise lurked in the letter box of Hans Bernoulli, an adjunct professor of urban design at ETH Zurich, on 24 December 1938. The President of the Swiss School Board had written to inform him that his lectureship was to end with the conclusion of the winter
Hangovers all round – first day at university, 1855
160 years ago, on 16 October 1855, 68 students embarked on their degrees at the newly found Federal Polytechnical School (now ETH Zurich). Naturally, the Swiss School Board decided to announce this in the newspapers all over Switzerland and even as far as Augsburg:
Dietary tips from the Einstein household
Fat does not equal fat. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) also mulled over this inequation and even advised his friend Jakob Ehrat against visiting certain restaurants in Zurich.