Peripatetic Highlights in Bern

Abstract

This tour of significant scientific sites in Bern uses the local legacy of its most illustrious scientists, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and Fritz Houtermans (1903-1966, as its guiding thread through the old town and the university district.

Einstein as Engineer:The Case of the Little Machine

“…6 After Einstein began working in the Patent Office in Bern in 1902, he continued to be occupied with instruments and experiments, even in his leisure time. He became a member of the Society of Natural Scientists (Naturforschende Gesellschaft) in Bern, 7 where he met the secondary-school teachers Rudolf Huber and Hans Rothenbühler, with whom he carried out physics experiments in the laboratory of one of the local secondary schools (Gymnasia), measuring among other things the force between currentcarrying conductors. Einstein also once surprised a colleague by erecting an aerial in this colleague's garden to receive Morse code from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.…”