Erdal İnönü was born in Ankara on June 6, 1926, as the middle child of İsmet and Mevhibe İnönü. He graduated from Ankara Gazi High School in 1943 and from Ankara University, Faculty of Science, Physics-Mathematics Department in 1947. After his undergraduate education, he went to the USA for master's and doctoral studies. He completed his master's degree in physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1948 and his doctorate in 1951. After doing research at Princeton University for a while, he returned to Turkey in 1952 and started working as an assistant at Ankara University, Faculty of Science. He became an associate professor in 1955. Between 1958 and 1960, he was a guest researcher at Princeton University and Oak Ridge Princeton National Laboratory. He then joined Middle East Technical University (METU) as a professor of theoretical physics. He served as the Head of the Theoretical Physics Department at METU between 1960 and 1964, and as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences between 1965 and 1968. He went to the USA in 1968 and taught as a guest professor at Princeton and Columbia universities for a year. Returning to Turkey in 1969, he was elected as METU vice rector and in 1970 as rector.
