2017

With the celebration of love and joy at Christmas fast approaching, this edition of “life” is dedicated to the topic of love. Where and how do couples meet at ETH? And what's their secret when it comes to finding love? In this edition, our cover story seeks to answer all of these questions. Happy reading and Merry Christmas!

The Gastro Pavilion at ETH-Campus Hönggerberg, built in 2016, is not only a gastronomic highlight. The Association of Spanish Architects awarded the transparent building as the best international project of the year.

The newest story on Explora deals with a topic that has been much discussed not only in recent times: Swiss glaciers.

Around 1,200 ETH members responded to the Executive Board’s invitation to this year’s Christmas reception. After looking back at some of the year’s highlights and getting a preview of the ETH plus initiative, the newly-launched ALEA Award was presented.

The federal pension provider PUBLICA is adjusting the technical interest rate and the conversion rate downwards. Thanks to provisions agreed earlier, pension reductions for ETH employees will largely be avoided.

ETH Zurich won this year's "European Excellence Awards in PR & Communications" with two projects: The Cybathlon won first prize in the category event and experiental marketing. Furthermore, the ETH Zurich short film won an award in the category Corporate Film and Video.

From Saturday, 23 December 2017 up to and including Tuesday, 2 January 2018, special ETH Zurich opening times and operational hours will apply.

From the beginning of 2018, ETH will switch completely to white recycled paper. This is a multiple benefit: The step reduces the burden on the environment, is cost-effective and meets high quality standards.

On Monday evening, ETH Vice President Ulrich Weidmann, ETH Real Estate Director Daniel Bucheli and project delegate for the university district Peter Bodmer invited the local districts to a “Dialogue with ETH”. They discussed the state of the various plans in the central district and ETH Zurich’s current building and renovation projects.

What is the nature and meaning of numbers? Mathematician Richard Dedekind asked these questions 159 years ago at ETH Zurich, and became the first person to define real numbers. To mark this occasion, the Israeli science historian Leo Corry will give a public lecture on the unity of Dedekind’s number theoretic concepts.