He attended the Staatsobergymnasium (Main Gimnázium) in District 9 of Budapest, graduating from high school in June 1920. In 1920 he went to the University of Vienna, where he studied chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, and physics for two years. After six months of mandatory apprenticeship done home in Hungary, he was admitted to the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), where he studied mechanical and then electrical engineering. Eventually he started his experiments in physics, where he became the assistant of Professor Richard Becker in 1928. He completed his master's in 1928 and his doctorate of engineering in 1933 on the fracture of mica.