Debout de gauche à droite : O.Goldschmidt, M.Planck, H.Rubens, A.Sommerfeld, T.Lindemann, M.de Broglie, M.Knudsen, F.Hasenöhrl, H.Hostelet, T.Herzen, J.Jeans, E.Rutherford, H.Kamerlingh Onnes, A.Einstein, P.Langevin.

Assis de gauche à droite : W.Nernst, M.Brillouin, E.Solvay, H.Lorentz, E.Warburg, J.Perrin, W.Wien, M.Curie, H.Poincaré.

In 1911 the idea of national and international conferences dealing with scientific matters, was about a century old.
The first Solvay Conference in Physics, however, set the style for a new type of scientific meeting: as Mr. Jacques Solvay told us, the participants in the meeting formed a select group of the most informed experts in a given field which met to discuss one or a few related problems of fundamental importance and seek to define the steps for their solution.
This style was kept for many years although the extraordinary expansion undergone with the passing of time by the effort invested in the development of all the sciences, in particular of physics, has provided an increasing number of other occasions for exchanges of view and discussions between experts in any subject.
The proceedings of the old Solvay Conferences in Physics forever will remain sources of information of a unique kind about the historical development of our present views. It is much more difficult, perhaps impossible, to make a similar statement about the more recent Solvay Conferences.

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It is surprising in retrospect that Rutherford's atomic nucleus model drew so little interest at first. At the Solvay Conference in 1913 it seems that besides Rutherford himself, Marie Curie was the only person who paid any attention to the atomic nucleus hypothesis. J. J. Thompson presented a paper at the Solvay Conference and did not mention Rutherford's work, or that of Neils Bohr.Niels Bohr used Rutherford's ideas to explain the behaviour of the simplest atom with one electron - hydrogen. He suggested that an electron was restricted to certain allowed orbits round the nucleus. When it jumped from one of these orbits to another the atom emitted or absorbed light. Marie Curie referred to Rutherford's work on the atomic nuclear model during the conference and also in subsequent publications.

Soon Rutherford went further. He split the atom. Using alpha particles to bombard nitrogen he detected nuclei of hydrogen which had been chipped off. In 1920 he speculated that hydrogen nuclei were a building block of all nuclei. He suggested the name proton for this unit. Other evidence for the proton came from both the electric charges and the masses of nuclei which change by whole units from element to element.

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Assis au 1er rang de gauche à droite : A.A. Michelson, P. Weiss, M. Brillouin, E. Solvay, H.A. Lorentz, E. Rutherford, R.A. Millikan, Madame Curie;

Deuxième rang de gauche à droite : M. Knudsen, J. Perrin, P. Langevin, O.W. Richardson, J. Larmor, K. Kamerlingh Onnes, P. Zeeman, M. De Broglie;

Debout de gauche à droite : W.L. Bragg, E. Van Aubel, W.J. De Haas, E. Herzen, C.G. Barkla, P. Ehrenfest, M. Siegbahn, J.E. Verschaffelt, L. Brillouin

Third Solvay Converence 1921, Brussels,

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Assis au 1er rang de gauche à droite : Ch. Mouren, F.W. Aston, W.H. Bragg, H.E. Armstrong, W. Pope, E. Solvay, A. Haller, S. Arrhenius, F. Soddy;

Deuxième rang de gauche à droite : M. Delepine, E. Bulmann, G. Chavanne, H. Wuyts, O. Dony-Henault, J.M. Lowry, F. Sivarts, G. Urbain, Ch. Mariguin, J. Perrin, E. Herzen, L.Flamache, F.M. Jaeger, E. Hannon, A. Debierne, Aug. Piccard, H. Rupe, A.. Berthoud, R.H. Pickard

First Solvay Chemistry Conference 1922

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Assis au 1er rang de gauche à droite : E. Rutherford, Madame Curie, E.H. Hall, H.A. Lorentz, W.H. Bragg, M. Brillouin, W.H. Keesom, I. Van Aubel;

Deuxième rang de gauche à droite : P. Debye, A. Joffe, O. W. Richardson, W. Broniewski, W. Rosenhain, P. Langevin, G. deHevesy;

Debout de gauche à droite : L. Brillouin, E. Henriot, Th. Dedonder, H.E.G. Bauer, E. Herzen, Aug. Piccard, E. Schrodinger, P.W. Bridgman, J. Verschaffelt

Fourth Solvay Converence 1921, Brussels,

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1er rang de gauche à droite : I. Langmuir, M. Planck, M. Curie, H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, P. Langevin, C. E. Guye, C. T. R. Wilson, O. W. Richardson.

2ème rang de gauche à droite : 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.

Debout de gauche à droite : A. Piccard, E. Henriot, P. Ehrenfest, E. Herzen, T. De Donder, E. Schroedinger, E. Verschaffelt, W. Pauli, W. Heisenberg, R. H. Fowler, L. Brillouin.

We have spent a considerable amount of time developing the modern atomic theory using the vehicle of history to tie the whole picture together. It is often been said that we stand on the shoulders of giants and this is never more true when we are talking about the atomic theory. As a farewell to this portion of the course I thought it would be appropriate to present you with the photograph of the participants in the 1927 Solvay conference on Quantum Mechanics. It is a remarkable collection of talent and I believe you now know a good bit about at least nine of these people. It is important to remember that they were normal, ordinary people. Smart, but no smarter than most of you in the class. Many, if not most of them showed no particular sign of brilliance as children or young adults. Some did miserably in school. Many were excentric. If anything set them apart from other people it was their ability to focus on a problem and work at it in the face of frustration and failure. I have every reason to believe that some of you will appear in such a photograph (or hologram) in the future.

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Assis de gauche à droite : Schrodinger, Joliot, Bohr, Joffe, Curie, Langevin, Richardson, Rutherford, DeDonder, M. deBroglie, L. deBroglie, Meitner, Chadwick;

Debout de gauche à droite : Henriot, Perrin, Joliot, Heisenberg, Kramers, Stahel, Fermi, Walton, Dirac, Debye, Mott, Cabrera, Gamow, Bothe, Blackett, Rosenblum, Errera, Bauer, Pauli, Verschaffelt, Cosyns, Herzen, Cockcroft, Ellis, Peierls, Piccard, Lawrence, Rosenfeld

Assis de gauche à droite : Cockcroft, Tonnelat, Schroedinger, Richardson, Bohr, Pauli, Bragg, Meitner, Dirac, Kramers, DeDonder, Heitler, Verschaffelt ;

Deuxième rang de gauche à droite : Scherrer, Stahel, Kelin, Blackett, Dee, Blcoh, Frisch, Peierls, Bhabha, Oppenheimer, Occhialini, Powell, Casimir, deHemptinne ;

Troisième rang de gauche à droite : Kipfer, Auger, Perrin, Serber, Rosenfeld, Ferretti, Moller, Leprince-Ringuet ;
Quatrième rang de gauche à droite : Balasse, Flamache, Grove, Goche, Demeur, Ferrera, Vanisacker, VanHove, Teller, Goldschmidt, Marton, Dilworth, Prigogine, Geheniau, Henriot, Vanstyvendael

Assis de gauche à droite : Crussaro, N.P. Allen, Cauchois, Borelius, Bragg, Moller, Sietz, Hollomon, Frank;

2ème rang de gauche à droite : Rathenau, Koster, Rudberg, Flamache, Goche, Groven, Orowan, Burgers, Shockley, Guinier, C.S. Smith, Dehlinger, Laval, Henriot;

3ème rang de gauche à droite : Gaspart, Lomer, Cottrell, Homes, Curien

Assis de gauche à droite : Mendelssohn, Frohlich, Pines, Moller, Pauli, Bragg, Mott, Neel, Meissner, MacDonald, Shull, Friedel;

Debout de gauche à droite : Gorter, Kittel, Matthias, Prigogine, Onsager, Pippard, Smit, Fumi, Jones, vanVleck, Lowdin, Seeger, Kipfer, Goche, Balasse, Geheniau

Assis de gauche à droite : McCrea, Oort, Lemaitre, Gorter, Pauli, Bragg, Oppenheimer, Moller, Shapley, Heckmann;

Debout de gauche à droite : Klein, Morgan, Hoyle, Kukaskin, Ambarzumian, van de Hulst, Fierz, Sandage, Baade, Schatzman, Wheeler, Bondi, Gold, Zanstra, Rosenfeld, Ledoux, Lovell, Geneniau

Solvay Conference, 1961. Appraisal of current state of quantum electrodynamics;

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David J. Gross (sa biographie sur le site des prix Nobel) a participé à cette session. Sa photo ici.

Chapman University Yakir Aharonov physicien quantique , Ph.D., ont assisté à la conférence Solvay 25e intitulée «Le monde quantique " 19 au 22 octobre à Bruxelles , en Belgique. Ce fut le 100e anniversaire de la conférence la plus célèbre de la physique , dont les membres se sont réunis à Solvay environ tous les quatre ans depuis la première conférence .

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