Great Minds

The Solvay Conference in Belgium

Fifth conference participants, 1927. Institut International de Physique Solvay in Leopold Park

The great minds of the nineteenth-century meeting for the Nobel Committee meeting. This picture was taken by Benjamin Couprie at the Institute International de Physique Solvay, Leopold Park, Brussels Belgium.

Back row, left to right: Auguste Piccard, Emile Herniot, Paul Ehrenfest, Edouard Herzen, Theophile de Donder, Erwin Schrodinger, Jules-Emile Verschaffelt, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, Ralph Howard Fowler, Leon Brillouin.

Middle row, left to right: Peter Debye, Martin Knudsen, William Lawrence Bragg, Hendrik Anthony Kramers, Paul Dirac, Arthur Compton, Louise de Broglie, Max Born, Neils Bohr.

Front row, left to right: Irving Langmuir, Max Plank, Marie Sklodowska Curie, Hendrik Lorentz, Albert Einstein, Paul Langevin, Charles- Eugene Guye, Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Owen Willians Richardson.

Another Amazing Image

The Solvay Conference was the confluence of the most brilliant minds of the 20th Century to discuss the implications of the newly formulated concepts, ideas, and papers in the recently developed field of Quantum Mechanics. Here is a great YouTube video from the channel ‘FreeScienceLectures’ showing the highlights from the 1927 conference.

The thing that I love the most about this conference and specifically about this image is that it showcases the young physicists like Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohr, Born and others at the back and the more experienced Physicists like Madame Curie, Einstein, Lorentz in the front which showcases the natural flow of ideas from the old to the young and almost personifies the saying-

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants

This is truly a remarkable image and truly a remarkable day in the history of physics.

Image Source - Solvay Conference Wikipedia Page