In 1908, he enrolled at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic (later known as ETH Zurich), changing course from Botany to Mathematics and Physics after two semesters.

[6] In 1916, while still working on his dissertation, he and his tutor, Peter Debye, developed the “Debye–Scherrer powder method”, a procedure using X-rays for the structural analysis of crystals.

This made an important contribution to the development of the scattering techniques that are still used in the large facilities at the Paul Scherrer Institute to this day.

Furthermore, he participated in setting up Reaktor AG, to study the construction and operation of nuclear fission facilities one year later, in Würenlingen.

When Scherrer was made emeritus professor in 1960, after 40 years at ETH Zurich, he took up a teaching appointment at the University of Basel and his former students and friends put together a Festschrift.