Solvay Conference

The Solvay Conferences () have been devoted to preeminent unsolved problems in both physics and chemistry. They began with the historic invitation-only 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics, considered a turning point in the world of physics, and are ongoing.

Since the success of 1911, they have been organised by the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry, founded by the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay in 1912 and 1913, and located in Brussels. The institutes coordinate conferences, workshops, seminars, and colloquia. Recent Solvay Conferences entail a three year cycle: the Solvay Conference on Physics followed by a gap year, followed by the Solvay Conference on Chemistry.

The 1st Solvay Conference on Biology titled "The organisation and dynamics of biological computation" took place in April 2024.

Notable conferences First conference Hendrik Lorentz was chairman of the first Solvay Conference on Physics, held in Brussels from 30 October to 3 November 1911.Paul Langevin and Maurice de Broglie, eds., La théorie du rayonnement et les quanta. Rapports et discussions de la réunion tenue à Bruxelles, du 30 octobre au 3 novembre 1911, sous les auspices de M. E. Solvay. Paris: , 1912. See also: The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 3: Writings 1909–1911, Doc. 26, p. 402 (English translation supplement). The subject was Radiation and the Quanta. This conference looked at the problems of having two approaches, namely classical physics and quantum theory. Albert Einstein was the second youngest physicist present (the youngest one was Frederick Lindemann). Other members of the Solvay Congress were experts including Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Ernest Rutherford and Henri Poincaré (see image for attendee list).

Third conference The third Solvay Conference on Physics was held in April 1921, soon after World War I. Most German scientists were barred from attending. In protest at this action, Albert Einstein, although he had renounced his German citizenship in 1896 and remained officially stateless until becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901,The Age of Entanglement, Louisa Gilder, Chapter 5, 2008. declined his invitation to attend the conference. Because anti-Semitism had been on the rise, Einstein accepted the invitation by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the president of the World Zionist Organization, for a trip to the United States to raise money.Einstein and the Quantum, A. Douglas Stone, Chap. 23, 2013.

Fourth conference The fourth Solvay Conference on Physics was held in 1924. These conferences, supported by the King of Belgium, had become the leading international gathering for the discussion of the very latest developments in physics. The subject was "The electrical conductivity of metals and related topics". Scientists based in Germany and Austria were not invited to this Solvay meeting due to the tensions still prevailing after the First World War. So there was no Planck, Einstein, Sommerfeld or Born.

Fifth conference Perhaps the most famous conference was the fifth Solvay Conference on Physics, which was held from 24 to 29 October 1927. The subject was Electrons and Photons and the world's most notable physicists met to discuss the newly formulated quantum theory. The leading figures were Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Seventeen of the 29 attendees were or became Nobel Prize winners, including Marie Skłodowska-Curie who, alone among them, had won Nobel Prizes in two separate scientific disciplines. The anti-German prejudice that had prevented Einstein and others from attending the Solvay conferences held after the First World War had melted away. Essentially all of those names who had contributed to the recent development of the quantum theory were at this Solvay Conference, including Bohr, Born, de Broglie, Dirac, Heisenberg, Pauli, Planck, Lorentz, Compton, Ehrenfest, and Schrödinger. Heisenberg commented:

The photo taken of this conference's participants is sometimes entitled "The Most Intelligent Photo Ever Taken," for its depiction of the world's leading physicists gathered together in one shot.

Solvay conferences on physics No Year Title Translation Chair 1 1911La théorie du rayonnement et les quantaThe theory of radiation and quantaHendrik Lorentz (Leiden) 2 1913La structure de la matièreThe structure of matter 3 1921Atomes et électronsAtoms and electrons 4 1924Conductibilité électrique des métaux et problèmes connexesElectric conductivity of metals and related problems 5 1927Electrons et photonsElectrons and photons 6 1930Le magnétismeMagnetismPaul Langevin (Paris) 7 1933Structure et propriétés des noyaux atomiquesStructure & properties of the atomic nucleus 8 1948Les particules élémentairesElementary particlesLawrence Bragg (Cambridge) 9 1951L'état solideThe solid state 10 1954Les électrons dans les métauxElectrons in metals 11 1958La structure et l'évolution de l'universThe structure and evolution of the universe 12 1961La théorie quantique des champsQuantum field theory 13 1964The Structure and Evolution of Galaxies J. Robert Oppenheimer (Princeton) 14 1967Fundamental Problems in Elementary Particle Physics Christian Møller (Copenhagen) 15 1970Symmetry Properties of NucleiEdoardo Amaldi (Rome) 16 1973Astrophysics and Gravitation 17 1978Order and Fluctuations in Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium Statistical MechanicsLéon Van Hove (CERN) 18 1982Higher Energy Physics 19 1987Surface Science F. W. de Wette (Austin) 20 1991Quantum Optics (Brussels) 21 1998Dynamical Systems and IrreversibilityIoannis Antoniou (Brussels) 22 2001The Physics of Communication 23 2005The Quantum Structure of Space and Time David Gross (Santa Barbara) 24 2008Quantum Theory of Condensed Matter Bertrand Halperin (Harvard) 25 2011The Theory of the Quantum World David Gross 26 2014Astrophysics and Cosmology Roger Blandford (Stanford) 27 2017The Physics of Living Matter: Space, Time and Information in Biology Boris Shraiman (Santa Barbara) 28 2022The Physics of Quantum Information David Gross (Santa Barbara) Peter Zoller (Innsbruck U.) 29 2023The Structure and Dynamics of Disordered Systems David Gross (Santa Barbara) Marc Mézard (Bocconi U.) Giorgio Parisi (Sapienza U.)

Participants per year The following list of participants is extracted from the proceedings of the Solvay Conferences in Physics stored in the Solvay archives

1948: (scientific committee – present) Sir Lawrence Bragg, Niels Bohr, Théophile De Donder, Sir Owen Willans Richardson, Jules-Émile Verschaffelt, Hendrik Kramers (scientific committee – absent) Peter Debye, Abram Fedorovich Ioffé, Albert Einstein, Frédéric Joliot-Curie (speakers) C. F. Powell, P. Auger, Felix Bloch, Patrick Blackett, Homi J. Bhabha, Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat on behalf of Louis de Broglie, Rudolf Peierls, Walter Heitler, Edward Teller, R. Serber, Léon Rosenfeld (additional participants) H. Casimir, J. Cockroft, P. Dee, Paul Dirac, Ferretti, O. Frisch, Oskar Klein, Leprince-Ringuet, Lise Meitner, Christian Møller, Francis Perrin, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Wolfgang Pauli, P. Scherrer, Erwin Schrödinger (auditeurs) J. Timmermans, G. Balasse, J. Errera, O. Goche, P. Kipfer, L. Flamache, M. Occhialini, Marc de Hemptinne (secrétaires) E. Stahel, J. Géhéniau, Miss Dilworth, Ilya Prigogine, L. Groven, Léon Van Hove, Yves Goldschmidt, MM Van Styvendael, Demeur, Van Isacker (administrative commission) Jules Bordet, Ernest-John Solvay, Dr F. Héger-Gilbert, E. Henriot, F. van den Dungen.

Conferences on physics gallery

Solvay conferences on chemistry No Year Title Translation Chair1 1922Cinq Questions d'ActualitéFive topical questionsWilliam Jackson Pope (Cambridge)2 1925Structure et Activité ChimiqueStructure and Chemical Activity3 1928Questions d'ActualitéTopical Questions4 1931Constitution et Configuration des Molécules OrganiquesConstitution and Configuration of Organic Molecules5 1934L'Oxygène, ses réactions chimiques et biologiquesOxygen, and its chemical and biological reactions.6 1937Les vitamines et les HormonesVitamins and Hormones Frédéric Swarts (Ghent)7 1947Les IsotopesIsotopesPaul Karrer (Zurich)8 1950Le Mécanisme de l'OxydationThe mechanism of oxidation9 1953Les ProtéinesProteins10 1956Quelques Problèmes de Chimie MinéraleSome Problems of Inorganic Chemistry11 1959Les NucléoprotéinesNucleoproteinsAlfred Ubbelohde (London)12 1962Transfert d'Energie dans les GazEnergy transfer in gases13 1965Reactivity of the Photoexcited Organic Molecule14 1969Phase Transitions15 1970Electrostatic Interactions and Structure of Water16 1976Molecular Movements and Chemical Reactivity as conditioned by Membranes, Enzymes and other Molecules17 1980Aspects of Chemical Evolution18 1983Design and Synthesis of Organic Molecules Based on Molecular Recognition Ephraim Katchalski (Rehovot) & Vladimir Prelog (Zurich)19 1987Surface Science F. W. de Wette (Austin)20 1995Chemical Reactions and their Control on the Femtosecond Time Scale Pierre Gaspard (Brussels)21 2007From Noncovalent Assemblies to Molecular Machines Jean-Pierre Sauvage (Strasbourg)22 2010Quantum Effects in Chemistry and Biology Graham Fleming (Berkeley)23 2013New Chemistry and New Opportunities from the Expanding Protein Universe Kurt Wüthrich (ETH Zurich)24 2016Catalysis in Chemistry and Biology Kurt Wüthrich (ETH Zurich) & Robert Grubbs (Caltech, USA)25 2019Computational Modeling: From Chemistry to Materials to Biology Kurt Wüthrich (ETH Zurich) & Bert Weckhuysen (Utrecht U., The Netherlands)26 2022Chemistry Challenges of the 21st Century Kurt Wüthrich (ETH Zurich) & Ben Feringa (Groningen U., The Netherlands)

Conferences on chemistry gallery

Solvay conferences on biology No Year Title Chair 1 2024 The organisation and dynamics of biological computation Thomas Lecuit (IBDM Marseille)

Participation of Nobel prize winners The following Nobel prize-winning scientists either attended Solvay Conferences before 1934 or were recipients of a Solvay subsidy.Franklin Lambert & Frits Berends: Vous avez dit : sabbat de sorcières ? La singulière histoire des premiers Conseils Solvay, EDP Sciences – Collection : Sciences et Histoire – octobre 2019. Annexe 1, page 263. (Before 1934 seven Solvay conferences on physics and four Solvay conferences on chemistry were held.)

1902–1910 H. A. Lorentz (1902), P. Zeeman (1902) - M. Skłodowska-Curie (1903 and 1911), S. Arrhenius (1903) - Lord Rayleigh (1904) - J. J. Thomson (1906) - A. A. Michelson (1907) - E. Rutherford (1908) - J. D. van der Waals (1910)

1911–1920 W. Wien (1911) - V. Grignard (1912) - H. Kamerlingh Onnes (1913) - M. von Laue (1914) - W. H. Bragg (1915), W. L. Bragg (1915) - C. G. Barkla (1917) - M. Planck (1918) - J. Stark (1919) - W. Nernst (1920)

1921–1930 A. Einstein (1921), F. Soddy (1921) - N. Bohr (1922), F. W. Aston (1922) - K. M. Siegbahn (1924) - J. Franck (1925), G. Hertz (1925) - J. Perrin (1926) - A. H. Compton (1927), C. T. R. Wilson (1927), H. Wieland (1927) - O. Richardson (1928) - L. de Broglie (1929)

1931–1940 W. Heisenberg (1932), I. Langmuir (1932) - P. A. M. Dirac (1933), E. Schrödinger (1933) - J. Chadwick (1935), F. Joliot-Curie (1935), I. Curie (1935) - W. Debije (1936) - E. Fermi (1938), R. Kuhn (1938) - E. Lawrence (1939), L. Ruzicka (1940)

1941–1950 G. de Hevesy (1943) - W. Pauli (1945) - P. Bridgman (1946) - P. Blackett (1948)

1951–1954 J. D. Cockcroft (1951), E. T. Walton (1951) - M. Born (1954), W. Bothe (1954).

Solvay Conference

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