The Solvay Conferences () have been devoted to preeminent unsolved problems in both

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

and

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

. 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 Ernest Gaston Joseph Solvay (; 16 April 1838 – 26 May 1922) was a Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist. Biography Born in Rebecq, he was prevented by his acute pleurisy from going to university. He worked in his uncle's c ...

in 1912 and 1913, and located in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

. 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 Hendrik Antoon Lorentz ( ; ; 18 July 1853 – 4 February 1928) was a Dutch theoretical physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for their discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. He derive ...

was chairman of the first Solvay Conference on Physics, held in Brussels from 30 October to 3 November 1911. The subject was ''Radiation and the Quanta''. This conference looked at the problems of having two approaches, namely

classical physics Classical physics refers to physics theories that are non-quantum or both non-quantum and non-relativistic, depending on the context. In historical discussions, ''classical physics'' refers to pre-1900 physics, while '' modern physics'' refers to ...

and quantum theory.

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

was the second youngest physicist present (the youngest one was

Frederick Lindemann Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, ( ; 5 April 18863 July 1957) was a British physicist who was prime scientific adviser to Winston Churchill in World War II. He was involved in the development of radar and infra-red guidan ...

). Other members of the ''Solvay Congress'' were experts including

Marie Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was List of female ...

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both Atomic physics, atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nu ...

and

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré (, ; ; 29 April 185417 July 1912) was a French mathematician, Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosophy of science, philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathemati ...

(see image for attendee list).

Third conference

The third Solvay Conference on Physics was held in April 1921, soon after

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Most German scientists were barred from attending. In protest at this action,

, although he had renounced German citizenship in 1901 and become a Swiss citizen (in 1896, he renounced his German citizenship, and remained officially stateless before becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901), declined his invitation to attend the conference and publicly renounced any German citizenship again. Because anti-Semitism had been on the rise, Einstein accepted the invitation by Dr.

Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( ; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organization and later as the first pre ...

, the president of the World Zionist Organization, for a trip to the United States to raise money.

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 ''

Electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

s and

Photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless particles that can ...

s'' and the world's most notable physicists met to discuss the newly formulated quantum theory. The leading figures were Albert Einstein and

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (, ; ; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and old quantum theory, quantum theory, for which he received the No ...

. Seventeen of the 29 attendees were or became

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

winners, including

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, and Schrödinger.

Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (; ; 5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist, one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics and a principal scientist in the German nuclear program during World War II. He pub ...

commented:

"Through the possibility of exchange between the representatives of different lines of research, this conference has contributed extraordinarily to the clarification of the physical foundations of the quantum theory. It forms, so to speak, the outward completion of the quantum theory."

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

Solvay conferences on physics

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 Sir William Lawrence Bragg (31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971) was an Australian-born British physicist who shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics with his father William Henry Bragg "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by m ...

, Niels Bohr,

Théophile De Donder Theophilus is a male given name with a range of alternative spellings. Its origin is the Greek word Θεόφιλος from θεός (''theós'', "God") and φιλία (''philía'', "love or affection") can be translated as "Love of God" or "Friend ...

, Sir

Owen Willans Richardson Sir Owen Willans Richardson (26 April 1879 – 15 February 1959) was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928 for his work on thermionic emission, which led to Richardson's law. Biography Richardson was born in Dew ...

Jules-Émile Verschaffelt Jules-Émile Verschaffelt (27 January 1870 in Ghent – 22 December 1955) Retrieved 11 September 2007. was a Belgian physicist. He worked at Kamerlingh Onnes's laboratory in Leiden from 1894 to 1906 and once again from 1914 to 1923. From 1906 to ...

Hendrik Kramers Hendrik Anthony "Hans" Kramers (17 December 1894 – 24 April 1952) was a Dutch physicist who worked with Niels Bohr to understand how electromagnetic waves interact with matter and made important contributions to quantum mechanics and statistical ...

(scientific committee – absent)

Peter Debye Peter Joseph William Debye ( ; born Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije, ; March 24, 1884 – November 2, 1966) was a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry. Biography Early life Born in Maastricht, Neth ...

, Abram Fedorovich Ioffé, Albert Einstein,

Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were t ...

(speakers) C. F. Powell, P. Auger, Felix Bloch,

Patrick Blackett Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett (18 November 1897 – 13 July 1974) was an English physicist who received the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1925, he was the first person to prove that radioactivity could cause the nuclear tr ...

Homi J. Bhabha Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FNI, FASc, FRS (30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist who is widely credited as the "father of the Indian nuclear programme". He was the founding director and professor of physics at the ...

Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat (née Baudot) (March 5, 1912 – December 3, 1980) was a French theoretical physicist. Her physics research focused on relativistic quantum mechanics under the influence of gravity. Along with the help of Albert Einstei ...

on behalf of

Louis de Broglie Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie (15 August 1892 – 19 March 1987) was a French theoretical physicist and aristocrat known for his contributions to quantum theory. In his 1924 PhD thesis, he postulated the wave nature of elec ...

, Rudolf Peierls, Walter Heitler,

Edward Teller Edward Teller (; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian and American Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and chemical engineer who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and one of the creators of ...

, R. Serber,

Léon Rosenfeld Léon Rosenfeld (; 14 August 1904 in Charleroi – 23 March 1974) was a Belgian physicist and a communist activist. Rosenfeld was born into a secular Jewish family. He was a polyglot who knew eight or nine languages and was fluent in at lea ...

(additional participants) H. Casimir, J. Cockroft, P. Dee,

Paul Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac ( ; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English mathematician and Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Dirac laid the foundations for bot ...

, Ferretti, O. Frisch,

Oskar Klein Oskar Benjamin Klein (; 15 September 1894 – 5 February 1977) was a Swedish theoretical physics, theoretical physicist. Oskar Klein is known for his work on Kaluza–Klein theory, which is partially named after him. Biography Klein was born ...

, Leprince-Ringuet,

Lise Meitner Elise Lise Meitner ( ; ; 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist who was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission. After completing her doctoral research in 1906, Meitner became the second woman ...

Christian Møller Christian Møller (22 December 1904, 14 January 1980) was a Danish people, Danish chemist and physicist who made fundamental contributions to the theory of relativity, theory of gravitation and quantum chemistry. He is known for Møller–Plesse ...

, Francis Perrin,

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...

Wolfgang Pauli Wolfgang Ernst Pauli ( ; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and a pioneer of quantum mechanics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the ...

, P. Scherrer,

Erwin Schrödinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger ( ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was an Austrian-Irish theoretical physicist who developed fundamental results in quantum field theory, quantum theory. In particul ...

(auditeurs) J. Timmermans, G. Balasse, J. Errera, O. Goche, P. Kipfer, L. Flamache, M. Occhialini,

Marc de Hemptinne Marc de Hemptinne (Ghent, 1902–1986) was a Belgian physicist. He was the son of Alexandre de Hemptinne, a professor at the University of Leuven. He studied chemistry at the University of Ghent and obtained a PhD in Science in 1926. Marc de He ...

(secrétaires) E. Stahel, J. Géhéniau, Miss Dilworth,

Ilya Prigogine Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; ; 28 May 2003) was a Belgian physical chemist of Russian-Jewish origin, noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility. Prigogine's work most notably earned him the 19 ...

, 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

File:1911 Solvay conference.jpg, First Conference, 1911 File:Solvay conference 1913.jpg, Second Conference, 1913 File:Third Solvay Conference, 1921.jpg, Third Conference, 1921 File:Solvay conference, 1924.jpg, Fourth Conference, 1924 File:Solvay conference 1927.jpg, Fifth Conference, 1927. 1st row : Langmuir, Planck, Madame Curie, Lorentz, Einstein, Langevin, Guye, Wilson, Richardson. 2nd row : Debye, Knudsen, W. L. Bragg, Kramers, Dirac, Compton, de Broglie, Born, Bohr. 3rd row : Piccard, Henriot, Ehrenfest, Herzen, De Donder, Schrödinger, Verschaffelt, Pauli, Heisenberg, Fowler, Brillouin. File:Solvay conference 1930.jpg, Sixth Conference, 1930. 1st row: Th. De Donder, P. Zeeman, P. Weiss, A. Sommerfeld, M. Curie, P. Langevin,

A. Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

, O. Richardson, B. Cabrera, N. Bohr, W. J. De Haas; 2nd row: E. Herzen, E. Henriot, J. Verschaffelt, C. Manneback, A. Cotton, J. Errera, O. Stern, A. Piccard, W. Gerlach, C. Darwin, P. A. M. Dirac, H. Bauer, P. Kapitsa, L. Brillouin, H. A. Kramers,

P. Debye Peter Joseph William Debye ( ; born Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije, ; March 24, 1884 – November 2, 1966) was a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry. Biography Early life Born in Maastricht, Nether ...

, W. Pauli, J. Dorfman ( ru), J. H. Van Vleck, E. Fermi, W. Heisenberg File:Solvay1933Large.jpg, Seventh Conference, 1933 File:Solvay conference 1948 g.jpg, Eighth Conference, 1948 File:Solvay conference 1951 g.jpg, Ninth Conference, 1951. ''Left to right, sitting:'' Crussaro,

Allen Allen, Allen's or Allens may refer to: Buildings * Allen Arena, an indoor arena at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee * Allen Center, a skyscraper complex in downtown Houston, Texas * Allen Fieldhouse, an indoor sports arena on the Univ ...

, Cauchois, Borelius,

Bragg Bragg may refer to: Places *Bragg City, Missouri, United States * Bragg, Texas, a ghost town, United States * Bragg, West Virginia, an unincorporated community, United States *Electoral district of Bragg, a state electoral district in South Austral ...

Møller Møller () is a Danish surname, referring to an occupation as a Miller, equivalent of the Scottish/English ''Miller (name), Miller'', the German ''Müller'' etc. Møller is the twentieth commonest surname in Denmark.Hollomon, Frank; ''middle row:'' , Koster, , Flamache, Goche, Groven, Orowan, Burgers, Shockley, Guinier, C.S. Smith, , Laval, Henriot; ''top row:'' Gaspart, Lomer, Cottrell, Homes, Curien File:Solvay conference 1954 g.jpg, Tenth Conference, 1954

Solvay conferences on chemistry

Conferences on chemistry gallery

File:Solvay conference, 1922.jpg, First Conference, 1922

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. 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).