I recognized that teaching and research institutions vitally depend on the involvement of active scientists also in management functions.

On the theoretical side, I was concerned with stochastic resonance.

My father, Robert Ernst, was teaching as an architect at the technical high school of our city.

In recent years, more and more of my time has become absorbed by administrative work for the research council of ETH-Z of which I am presently the president.

Experiments were not attempted at that time, we did not believe in the usefulness of the concept anyway, and I finished my thesis in 1962 with a feeling like an artist balancing on a high rope without any interested spectators.

However, I survived and started to read all chemistry books that I could get a hand on, first some 19th century books from our home library that did not provide much reliable information, and then I emptied the rather extensive city library.

I thus decided to leave the university forever and tried to find an industrial job in the United States.