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Hotel Metropole, Brussels
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The Hotel Metropole Brussels, built in 1895, is the only nineteenth-century hotel in Brussels still in operation today. The hotel has 262 rooms and 22 spacious suites, in 1890, two brothers with a brewing company opened Café Metropole as a place in the city to sell their beer. The café was a success and the Weilemans-Ceuppens family then purchased the building next-door, a former bank. Today, the reception desk is easily recognizable as the desk of the former bank. The brothers commissioned French architect Alban Chambon to be the designer of the hotel. Today, Chambon’s design is still a prominent feature of the heritage hotel, not only was Hotel Metropole one of the first luxury hotels, it was also the first to have electricity and central heating, and is now the only existing 19th century hotel in Brussels. In fact, many tours of Brussels visit the Hotel Metropole to look upon its facades. The hotel’s reception, lobby, and lounge are overtly ornate with Corinthian columns, rich furnishings, gilded details, similarly, the meetings and conference rooms of the hotel are decorated in a Renaissance style. The Hotel Metropole is famous for having hosted the first Solvay Conference in 1911, moreover, it is the birthplace of the Black Russian cocktail, which was created in 1949 by barman Gustave Tops for the United States ambassador to Luxembourg, Perle Mesta. Official website A list of guests who have stayed at the Metropole Pure Heritage Hotels
2.
Walther Nernst
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Nernst helped establish the modern field of physical chemistry and contributed to electrochemistry, thermodynamics and solid state physics. He is also known for developing the Nernst equation, Nernst was born in Briesen in West Prussia as son of Gustav Nernst and Ottilie Nerger. His father was a country judge, Nernst had three older sisters and one younger brother. The third sister died due to cholera, Nernst went to elementary school at Graudenz. He studied physics and mathematics at the universities of Zürich, Berlin, Graz and Würzburg, in 1889, he finished his habilitation at University of Leipzig. It was said that Nernst was mechanically minded in that he was thinking of ways to apply new discoveries to industry. Nernsts hobbies included hunting and fishing, Nernst married in 1892 to Emma Lohmeyer with whom he had two sons and three daughters. Both of Nernsts sons died fighting in World War I and he was a colleague of Svante Arrhenius, and suggested setting fire to unused coal seams to increase the global temperature. He was a critic of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. In 1933, the rise of Nazism led to the end of Nernsts career as a scientist, Nernst died in 1941 and is buried near Max Planck, Otto Hahn and Max von Laue in Göttingen, Germany. After some work at Leipzig, he founded the Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry at Göttingen, Nernst invented, in 1897 an electric lamp, using an incandescent ceramic rod. His invention, known as the Nernst lamp, was the successor to the lamp of Edison. Nernst researched osmotic pressure and electrochemistry, in 1905, he established what he referred to as his New Heat Theorem, later known as the Third law of thermodynamics. This is the work for which he is best remembered, as it provided a means of determining free energies of reactions from heat measurements. Theodore Richards claimed Nernst had stolen the idea from him, in 1911, with Max Planck, he was the main organizer of the first Solvay Conference in Brussels. In 1912, the impressionist painter Max Liebermann painted his portrait, in 1914 Nernst showed his support for German militarism by signing the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three. He also accepted the post of Staff Scientific Advisor in the Imperial German Army, in 1918, after studying photochemistry, he proposed the atomic chain reaction theory. The atomic chain reaction theory stated that when a reaction in which atoms are formed
3.
Marcel Brillouin
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Louis Marcel Brillouin was a French physicist and mathematician. Born in Saint-Martin-lès-Melle, Deux-Sèvres, France, his father was a painter who moved to Paris when Marcel was a boy, there he attended the Lycée Condorcet. The Brillouin family returned to Saint-Martin-lès-Melle during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to escape the fighting, there he spent time teaching himself from his grandfathers philosophy books. After the war, he returned to Paris and entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1874, Brillouin then held successive posts as assistant professor of physics at universities in Nancy, Dijon and Toulouse before returning to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1888. Later, he was Professor of Mathematical Physics at the Collège de France from 1900 to retirement in 1931, in 1911 he was one of only six French physicists invited to the first Solvay Conference. He was awarded the Prix La Caze for 1912, Brillouin was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1921. He was an officer of the Legion of Honour, most notably he, built a new model of the Eötvös balance, wrote on Helmholtz flow and the stability of aircraft, worked on a theory of the tides. His son Léon Brillouin, also had a prominent career in physics, in Dictionary of Scientific Biography ed. by C. C. Propagation de lÉlectricité, Histoire et Théorie, leçons sur la Viscosité des Liquides et des Gaz. Jubilé de M. Brillouin pour son 80ème anniversaire, comptes Rendus de lAcadémie des Sciences, vol. Biography at the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland
4.
Ernest Solvay
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Ernest Gaston Joseph Solvay was a Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist. Born at Rebecq, he was prevented by acute pleurisy from going to university and he worked in his uncles chemical factory from the age of 21. In 1861, he developed the process for the manufacturing of soda ash from brine and limestone. The process was an improvement over the earlier Leblanc process and he founded the company Solvay & Cie and established his first factory at Couillet in 1863 and further perfected the process until 1872, when he patented it. Soon, Solvay process plants were established in the United Kingdom, today, about 70 Solvay process plants are still operational worldwide. In 1903, he founded the Solvay Business School which is part of the Free University of Brussels. A later conference would include Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and he was twice elected to the Belgian Senate for the Liberal Party and granted honorary title of Minister of State at the end of his life. Solvay, New York and Rosignano Solvay, the locations of the first Solvay process plants in the United States, Solvay died at Ixelles at the age of 84 and is interred there in the Ixelles Cemetery. 1918, Minister of State, By Royal Decree,1918, Grand Cordon in the Order of Leopold, by Royal Decree. Solvay Institute of Sociology Emile Waxweiler Solvay Hut Bertrand, Louis, een hervormer op maatschappelijk gebied, Brussels, Agence Dechenne,1918,113 p. Boianovsky, Mauro, Erreygers, Guido, Social comptabilism and pure credit systems. Solvay and Wicksell on monetary reform, in, Fontaine, Philippe, Leonard, Robert, The experiment in the history of economics, London, Routledge,2005, pp. 98–134. Studies of neglected thinkers of Belgium, France, The Netherlands and Scandinavia, Cheltenham-Northampton, Edward Elgar,1998, des rives de la Sambre aux confins de la terre, Bruxelles, Didier Hatier,1989,187 p. Author not stated. Vie DErnest Solvay Bruxelles, Chez le Libraire Lamertin,1929,164 pp. Ten heliogravures Soft cover, media related to Ernest Solvay at Wikimedia Commons Quotations related to Ernest Solvay at Wikiquote
5.
Hendrik Lorentz
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Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was a Dutch physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. He also derived the equations which formed the basis of the special relativity theory of Albert Einstein. For this he received honours and distinctions during his life. Hendrik Lorentz was born in Arnhem, Gelderland, the son of Gerrit Frederik Lorentz, a well-off nurseryman, in 1862, after his mothers death, his father married Luberta Hupkes. Despite being raised as a Protestant, he was a freethinker in religious matters, from 1866 to 1869 he attended the Hogere Burger School in Arnhem, a new type of public high school recently established by Johan Rudolph Thorbecke. His results in school were exemplary, not only did he excel in the sciences and mathematics, but also in English, French. In 1870 he passed the exams in languages which were then required for admission to University. After earning a degree, he returned to Arnhem in 1871 to teach night school classes in mathematics. On 17 November 1877, only 24 years of age, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was appointed to the established chair in theoretical physics at the University of Leiden. The position had initially offered to Johan van der Waals. On 25 January 1878 Lorentz delivered his lecture on De moleculaire theoriën in de natuurkunde. In 1881 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts, during the first twenty years in Leiden, Lorentz was primarily interested in the theory of electromagnetism to explain the relationship of electricity, magnetism, and light. After that, he extended his research to a wider area while still focusing on theoretical physics. Lorentz made significant contributions to fields ranging from hydrodynamics to general relativity and his most important contributions were in the area of electromagnetism, the electron theory, and relativity. Lorentz theorized that atoms might consist of charged particles and suggested that the oscillations of charged particles were the source of light. When a colleague and former student of Lorentzs, Pieter Zeeman, discovered the Zeeman effect in 1896, the experimental and theoretical work was honored with the Nobel prize in physics in 1902. Lorentz name is now associated with the Lorentz-Lorenz formula, the Lorentz force, the Lorentzian distribution, in 1892 and 1895 Lorentz worked on describing electromagnetic phenomena in reference frames that move relative to the luminiferous aether. He discovered that the transition from one to another reference frame could be simplified by using a new variable which he called local time
6.
Emil Warburg
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Emil Gabriel Warburg was a German physicist who during his career was professor of physics at the Universities of Strassburg, Freiburg and Berlin. He was president of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft 1899-1905 and he was a friend of Albert Einstein. Among his students were James Franck, Eduard Grüneisen, Robert Pohl, Erich Regener and he was a member of the Warburg family. He carried out research in the areas of theory of gases, electrical conductivity, gas discharges, heat radiation, ferromagnetism. He was the father of Otto Heinrich Warburg
7.
Jean Baptiste Perrin
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For this achievement he was honoured with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1926. Born in Lille, France, Perrin attended the École Normale Supérieure and he became an assistant at the school during the period of 1894–97 when he began the study of cathode rays and X-rays. He was awarded the degree of docteur ès sciences in 1897, in the same year he was appointed as a lecturer in physical chemistry at the Sorbonne, Paris. He became a professor at the University in 1910, holding this post until the German occupation of France during World War II, in 1895, Perrin showed that cathode rays were of negative electric charge in nature. He determined Avogadros number by several methods and he explained solar energy as due to the thermonuclear reactions of hydrogen. Perrin was the author of a number of books and dissertations, most notable of his publications were, Rayons cathodiques et rayons X, Les Principes, Electrisation de contact, Réalité moléculaire, Matière et Lumière, Lumière et Reaction chimique. Perrin was also the recipient of prestigious awards including the Joule Prize of the Royal Society in 1896. He was twice appointed a member of the Solvay Committee at Brussels in 1911 and he also held memberships with the Royal Society of London and with the Academies of Sciences of Belgium, Sweden, Turin, Prague, Romania and China. He became a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1926 and was made Commander of the Order of Léopold, in 1919, Perrin proposed that nuclear reactions can provide the source of energy in stars. · In 1927, he founded the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique together with chemist André Job, funding was provided by Edmond James de Rothschild. In 1937, Perrin established the Palais de la Découverte, a museum in Paris. Perrin is considered the father of the National Centre for Scientific Research. In 1936, Perrin, now an undersecretary for research, founded the Service Central de la Recherche Scientifique, both institutions were merged under the CNRS umbrella on October 19,1939. His notable students include Pierre Victor Auger, jean Perrin was the father of Francis Perrin, also a physicist. Perrin was an atheist and a socialist and he was an officer in the engineer corps during World War I. When the Germans invaded France in 1940, he escaped to the U. S. A. together with his partner Nine Choucroun and he died in New York City. After the War, in 1948, his remains were transported back to France by the cruiser Jeanne dArc, exposé de thermodynamique /Principles of thermodynamics Traité de chimie physique
8.
Wilhelm Wien
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He also formulated an expression for the black-body radiation which is correct in the photon-gas limit. His arguments were based on the notion of adiabatic invariance, and were instrumental for the formulation of quantum mechanics, Wien received the 1911 Nobel Prize for his work on heat radiation. He was a cousin of Max Wien, inventor of the Wien bridge, Wien was born at Gaffken near Fischhausen, Province of Prussia as the son of landowner Carl Wien. In 1866, his family moved to Drachstein near Rastenburg, in 1879, Wien went to school in Rastenburg and from 1880-1882 he attended the city school of Heidelberg. In 1882 he attended the University of Göttingen and the University of Berlin, from 1896 to 1899, Wien lectured at RWTH Aachen University. In 1900 he went to the University of Würzburg and became successor of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, in 1896 Wien empirically determined a distribution law of blackbody radiation, later named after him, Wiens law. However, Wiens law was valid at high frequencies. Planck corrected the theory and proposed what is now called Plancks law, in 1900, he assumed that the entire mass of matter is of electromagnetic origin and proposed the formula m = E / c 2 for the relation between electromagnetic mass and electromagnetic energy. While studying streams of ionized gas, Wien, in 1898, Wien, with this work, laid the foundation of mass spectrometry. J. J. Thomson refined Wiens apparatus and conducted experiments in 1913 then, after work by Ernest Rutherford in 1919. During April 1913, Wien was a lecturer at Columbia University, in 1911, Wien was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat. Wiens distribution law History of special relativity Mass–energy equivalence ——, ueber die Fragen, welche die translatorische Bewegung des Lichtäthers betreffen. Über die Möglichkeit einer elektromagnetischen Begründung der Mechanik, Über die Differentialgleichungen der Elektrodynamik für bewegte Körper. Über die Differentialgleichungen der Elektrodynamik für bewegte Körper, erwiderung auf die Kritik des Hrn. Aus dem Leben und Wirken eines Physikers, rüchardt, E. Zur Entdeckung der Kanalstrahlen vor fünfzig Jahren. Rüchardt, E. Zur Erinnerung an Wilhelm Wien bei der 25, Wilhelm Wien OConnor, John J. Robertson, Edmund F. Wilhelm Wien, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews
9.
Marie Curie
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Marie Skłodowska Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris and she was born in Warsaw, in what was then the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. She studied at Warsaws clandestine Floating University and began her scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris and she shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with physicist Henri Becquerel. She won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and her achievements included the development of the theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the worlds first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms and she founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals, while a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland and she named the first chemical element that she discovered—polonium, which she isolated in 1898—after her native country. Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in the Russian partition of Poland, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, the elder siblings of Maria were Zofia, Józef, Bronisława and Helena. On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Polands independence. This condemned the subsequent generation, including Maria, her sisters and her brother. Marias paternal grandfather, Józef Skłodowski, had been a teacher in Lublin, where he taught the young Bolesław Prus. Her father, Władysław Skłodowski, taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, after Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he brought much of the laboratory equipment home, and instructed his children in its use. Marias mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls and she died of tuberculosis in May 1878, when Maria was ten years old. Less than three years earlier, Marias oldest sibling, Zofia, had died of typhus contracted from a boarder, Marias father was an atheist, her mother a devout Catholic. The deaths of Marias mother and sister caused her to give up Catholicism and become agnostic. When she was ten years old, Maria began attending the school of J. Sikorska, next she attended a gymnasium for girls. After a collapse, possibly due to depression, she spent the year in the countryside with relatives of her father, and the next year with her father in Warsaw
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