Biography
Weyl was born in Elmshorn, a small town near Hamburg, in Germany, and attended the gymnasium Christianeum in Altona.
From 1904 to 1908 he studied mathematics and physics in both Göttingen and Munich. His doctorate was awarded at the University of Göttingen under the supervision of David Hilbert whom he greatly admired. After taking a teaching post for a few years, he left Göttingen for Zürich to take the chair of mathematics in the ETH Zurich, where he was a colleague of Albert Einstein, who was working out the details of the theory of general relativity. Einstein had a lasting influence on Weyl who became fascinated by mathematical physics. Weyl met Erwin Schrödinger in 1921, who was appointed Professor at the University of Zürich. They were to become close friends over time. Weyl had some sort of childless love affair with Annemarie (Anny) Schrödinger, while Anny helped raise a daughter whom Erwin had with another woman.
Weyl left Zürich in 1930 to become Hilbert's successor at Göttingen, leaving when the Nazis assumed power in 1933, particularly as his wife was Jewish. The events persuaded him to move to the new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He remained there until his retirement in 1951. Together with his wife, he spent his time in Princeton and Zürich, and died in Zürich in 1955.
Read more about this topic: Hermann Weyl
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