The Albert Einstein Society was founded by Dr. Max Flückiger on 28 June 1977. Based in

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, the society awards the Einstein Medal to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

that relates to the work of

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 ...

. The society also operates Einstein House in Bern as a museum, holds the annual Albert Einstein Lectures series, and publishes a newsletter.

History

The society was founded in 1977, by Max Flückiger. It is based in Einstein House in Bern, which is where Einstein developed his theory of relativity in the ''Annus Mirabilis'' papers. The house was opened as a museum on 14 March 1979, to mark the hundredth anniversary of Einstein's birth. Flückiger is not a physicist but had written a biography of Einstein, focused on his years in Bern, which was published in 1974. The society has a scientific board of trustees, members of which include president Philippe Jetzer, Matthias Blau, Camille Bonvin, Christoph Greub, Mikko Laine and Hans-Rudolf Ott. The board of trustees is responsible for submitting proposals for the awarding of the Einstein Medal.

Activities

The society awards the Einstein Medal to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to

that relates to the work of

. They operate the Einstein House as a museum, and run public lectures and publish a regular newsletter, ''Olympia''. The society also advocated for the renaming of a street in Bern to commemorate Einstein.

Albert Einstein Lectures

Since 2009, the society has collaborated with the University of Bern to give an annual public lecture series, the Albert Einstein Lectures. The event involves are three lectures held in a single week each year, delivered by one person. Recent lectures have been delivered by Susan R. Wolf (2024), who lectured on 'human selves',

Maryna Viazovska Maryna Sergiivna Viazovska (, ; born 2 December 1984) is a Ukrainian mathematician known for her work in sphere packing. She is a full professor and Chair of Number Theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to ...

(2023), who lectured on the mathematics of sphere packings, and

Didier Queloz Didier Patrick Queloz (; born 23 February 1966) is a Swiss astronomer. He is the Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where he is also a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as a professor at the ...

(2022), who lectured on exoplanets.

References

External links

Einstein Haus Bern
* * {{authority control Organizations established in 1977 Scientific societies based in Switzerland Organisations based in Bern 1977 establishments in Switzerland Albert Einstein