Cecile G. Tamura
Is this the greatest meeting of minds ever? Einstein and Curie among SEVENTEEN nobel prize winners at historic conference
It would be hard to imagine a more intelligent and brilliant group of
people, let alone all these great minds in the same room together.
However this was the case in 1927 when Einstein and his venerable
colleagues gathered at the Solvay Conference on Electrons and Photons in
Brussels.
The International Solvay Institutes for Physics and
Chemistry was founded by the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay in
1912, following the historic invitation-only 1911 Conseil Solvay, the
first world physics conference.
Since then some of the greatest
scientists in the world have come together about every three years to
discuss the most perplexing problems in both physics and chemistry.
The most famous conference was the October 1927 Fifth Solvay
International Conference on Electrons and Photons, where the world’s
most notable physicists met to discuss the newly formulated quantum
theory.
The leading figures were Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.
Einstein, disenchanted with Heisenberg’s 'Uncertainty Principle,'
remarked 'God does not play dice.' Bohr, who won his Nobel prize in
1922. replied, 'Einstein, stop telling God what to do.'
This was
not the only squabble between Einstein and Bohr however, as the two
interpretations of the laws of physics was a great source of controversy
between the pair. More recent research published in the academic
journal, Physical Review Letters, has shown Bohr's theory to be the
stronger of the two.
Despite Bohr's obvious talent and immense
intelligence, Einstein is still a lot more well known. 'You don't need
to be Einstein to work that out' is a common saying still used, whereas
Bohr is not nearly as much of a household name.
Einstein received
his Nobel Prize in 1922 also, 'for his services to Theoretical Physics,
and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric
effect'. However the Nobel Committee for Physics decided that none of
the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of
Alfred Nobel.
According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the
Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and
this statute was then applied.
Seventeen of the twenty-nine
attendees were or became Nobel Prize winners, including Marie Curie, who
is not hard to spot as the only woman in the photograph.
The
charity Marie Curie Cancer is one of the biggest cancer charities in the
country, which began in 1948 when committee members decided to preserve
the Marie Curie name in the charitable medical field.
Marie Curie had won Nobel Prizes in two separate scientific disciplines.
Also among the distinguished panel was Erwin Schrodinger. Eight years
after this group photograph was taken he devised his famous quantum
theory called Schrodinger’s Cat.
This suggested something could exist in two different states at the same time until it was observed.
In the experiment, Schrodinger proposed the idea of a cat left in a box
with a radioactive substance, which had a 50 per cent chance of
decaying and releasing a poison, thus killing the cat within an hour.
Because there is also a 50 per cent chance the substance would not
decay, and thus not release the poison, quantum mechanics dictate that
the cat is neither alive, nor dead, until the box is opened for
measurement.
Photograph
of the first conference in 1911 at the Hotel Metropole. Seated (L-R):
W. Nernst, M. Brillouin, E. Solvay, H. Lorentz, E. Warburg, J. Perrin,
W. Wien, M. Skłodowska-Curie, and H. Poincaré. Standing (L-R): R.
Goldschmidt, M. Planck, H. Rubens, A. Sommerfeld, F. Lindemann, M. de
Broglie, M. Knudsen, F. Hasenöhrl, G. Hostelet, E. Herzen, J.H. Jeans,
E. Rutherford, H. Kamerlingh Onnes, A. Einstein and P. Langevin.
Back
row L-R: A Piccard, E Henriot, P Ehrenfest, Ed Herzen, Th. De Donder, E
Schroedinger, E Verschaffelt, W Pauli, W Heisenberg, R. H Fowler, L
Brillouin
Middle row L-R: P Debye, M Knudsen, W. L Bragg, H. A Kramers. P. A. M Dirac, A. H Compton, L. V. De Broglie, M Born, N Bohr
Front row: L-R: Angmeir, M Planck, M Curie, H. A Lorentz, A Einstein, P Langevin, Ch. E Guye, C. T. R Wilson, O. W Richardson
Back row L-R
Auguste Picard
DOB: 28 January 1884 Nationality: Swiss Fact: Made record-breaking
ascent to 53,152ft in a balloon and also designed submarines. Basis for
character Professor Cuthbert Calculus in TinTin. Gene Roddenberry named
the Star Trek captain Jean Luc Picard after him.
Émile Henriot
DOB: 2 July 1885 Nationality: French Fact: First to show definitely that potassium and rubidium are naturally radioactive.
Paul Ehrenfest
DOB: 18 January 1880 Nationality: Austrian Fact: Mathmetician who
worked on statistical mechanics. In his final years he suffered severe
depression. At one point Einstein was so worried that he wrote to the
Board of the University of Leiden, suggesting ways to reduce Ehrenfest's
workload.
Edouard Herzen
DOB: 1876 Nationality: French Fact:
Paris-based artist with an interest in pscyhoanalysis. He was good
friends with Sigmund Freud.
Théophile Ernest de Donder
DOB: 1872 Nationality: Belgian Fact: He is considered the father of
thermodynamics of irreversible processes, and wrote several books.
Erwin Schrödinger
DOB: 12 August 1887 Nationality: Austrian Fact: Conducted the famous
experiment known as Schrödinger's cat, which postulated that something
could exist in two states until it was observed.
Jules-Émile Verschaffelt
DOB: 27 January 1870 Nationality: Belgian Fact: He specialised in
crystallography - the experimental science of the arrangement of atoms
in solids.
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli
DOB: 25 April 1900
Nationality: Austrian Fact: Theoretical physicist who won a Nobel Prize
in 1945 for his discovery of a new law of nature known as the exclusion
principle. He had a severe breakdown following his divorce in 1930 and
consulted psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung.
Werner Heisenberg
DOB: 5 December 1901 Nationality: German Fact: Awarded Nobel prize for
physics in 1932. Best known for asserting the uncertainty principle in
quantum theory. He was head of Germany's nuclear fusion research during
World War Two.
Sir Ralph Howard Fowler
DOB: 17 January
1889 Nationality: English Fact: He worked as second in command working
with the Experimental Department of HMS Excellent on Whale Island and
made a major contribution on the aerodynamics of spinning shells, for
which he was awarded an OBE in 1918.
Léon Nicolas Brillouin
DOB: August 7 1889 Nationality: French Fact: He contributed to quantum mechanics and radio wave propagation in the atmosphere.
Middle row L-R
Peter Joseph William Debye
DOB: March 24 1884 Nationality: Dutch Fact: Won theNobel prize for chemistry in 1936 for his study of molecular structure.
In January 2006, a book written by Sybe Rispens, alleged Debye had been
actively involved in cleansing German science institutions of Jewish
and other 'non-Aryan elements.'
Martin Hans Christian Knudsen
DOB: 15 February 1871 Nationality: Danish Fact: Knudsen was very active
in physical oceanography, developing methods of defining properties of
seawater.
Sir William Lawrence Bragg
DOB: 31 March
1890 Nationality: Australian Fact: He was joint winner with his father,
Sir William Bragg, of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915. He is most
famous for his law on the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.
Hendrik Anthony Kramers
DOB: February 2 1894 Nationality: Dutch Fact: The physicist was one of
the founders of the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam. He won the
Lorentz Medal in 1947 and Hughes Medal in 1951.
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac
DOB: August 8 1902 Nationality: Dutch Fact: Dirac shared the Nobel
Prize in physics for 1933 with Erwin Schrödinger, 'for the discovery of
new productive forms of atomic theory.'
Arthur Holly Compton
DOB: September 10 1892 Nationality: American Fact: Along with being an
academic his father was a Presbyterian clergyman. Won nobel prize in
physics in 1927. Discovered Compton scattering - a type of scattering
that X-rays and gamma rays undergo in matter.
Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond, 7th duc de Broglie
DOB: August 15 1892 Nationality: French Fact: In addition to strictly
scientific work, de Broglie thought and wrote about the philosophy of
science, including the value of modern scientific discoveries.
Max Born
DOB: December 11 1882 Nationality: German Fact: Born was one of the 11
signatories to the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. He is also the
great-grandfather of the famous TV editor and percussionist Kip
Thompson-Born.
Niels Henrik David Bohr
DOB: 7 October
1885 Nationality: Danish Fact: Bohr married Margrethe Nørlund in 1912,
and one of their sons, Aage Bohr, grew up to be an important physicist
who in 1975 also received the Nobel prize.
Front row L-R
Irving Langmuir
DOB: 31 January 1881 Nationality: American Fact: Langmuir was married
to Marion Mersereau in 1912 with whom he adopted two children: Kenneth
and Barbara. After a short illness, he died in Woods Hole, Massachusetts
from a heart attack in 1957. His obituary ran on the front page of The
New York Times.
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
DOB: 23
April 1858 Nationality: German Fact: Planck is a space observatory
launched in 2009 was named after him. It is designed to observe the
anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) over the entire
sky, using high sensitivity and angular resolution.
Marie Skłodowska Curie
DOB: 7 November 1867 Nationality: Polish Fact: While an actively loyal
French citizen, Skłodowska–Curie (as she styled herself) never lost her
sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language
and took them on visits to Poland. She named the first chemical element
that she discovered 'polonium' (1898) for her native country.
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz
DOB: 18 July 1853 Nationality: Dutch Fact: In addition to the Nobel
prize, Lorentz received a great many honours for his outstanding work.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1905. The Society
awarded him their Rumford Medal in 1908 and their Copley Medal in 1918.
Albert Einstein
DOB: 14 March 1879 Nationality: German Fact: Einstein published more
than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works. His
great intelligence and originality have made the word 'Einstein'
synonymous with genius.
Paul Langevin
DOB: 23 January
1872 Nationality: French Fact: His daughter, Hélène Solomon-Langevin,
was arrested for Resistance activity and survived several concentration
camps. She was on the same convoy of female political prisoners as
Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier and Charlotte Delbo.
Charles Eugene Guy
DOB: 1866 Nationality: Swiss Fact: His research focus was on the field
of electric currents, magnetism, gas discharges. He was involved in
Einstein’s work on the special theory of relativity.
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson
DOB: 14 February 1869 Nationality: Scottish Fact: The Wilson
Condensation Cloud formations, occurring after a very large explosion
(such as a nuclear detonation), are named after him.
The Wilson Society, the natural sciences society of Sidney Sussex College, is also named for him.
Sir Owen Willans Richardson
DOB: 26 April 1879 Nationality: English Fact: He demonstrated that the
current from a heated wire seemed to depend exponentially on the
temperature of the wire with a mathematical form similar to the
Arrhenius equation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_Conference
http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/solvay-conference-probably…/
http://www.businessinsider.com/solvay-conference-1927-2015-4
With a background in mechanics, Dr. Konig recognized this configuration was not a chance arrangement, but that the clay pot was nothing less than an ancient electric battery. The ancient battery in the Baghdad Museum as well as those others which were unearthed in Iraq all date from the Parthian Persian occupation between 248 B.C. and A.D. 226. However, Konig found copper vases plated with silver in the Baghdad Museum excavated from Sumerian remains in southern Iraq dating back to at least 2500 B.C. When the vases were lightly tapped a blue patina or film separated from the surfaces, characteristic of silver electroplated to copper. It would appear then that the Persians inherited their batteries from the earliest known civilization in the Middle East."[1]I
