Throughout his life Richard Dedekind was linked to the Göttingen mathematical and scientific institutions. He finished his dissertation at the Göttingen mathematical institute under the guidance of Carl Friedrich Gauß in 1852 and completed his Habilitation there in 1854. In 1858 he left Göttingen for Zurich, and in 1862 he accepted a professorship in Brunswick, the town where he was born, living there until his death. Already in 1859 he became a corresponding member and in 1862 an external member of the Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.