The Golden Age of Quantum Physics (1927)

The remarkable group photograph from the Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons in 1927 (Colorized by Marina Amaral)

The “most intelligent photograph ever taken”, as it is sometimes known, was captured during the Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons held in 1927 in Brussels, Belgium. The photograph is famous because it was captured at the outset of what would later be known as the “debate of the century” over the non-deterministic nature of quantum physics. The central discussion of the debate is covered in the May 25th newsletter ‘The Bohr-Einstein Debate’:

The Bohr-Einstein Debate

Among those present at the 1927 Solvay conference, on one side of the debate were the originators of the newly devised quantum mechanics, including Werner Heisenberg (1901-76) himself, in addition to his collaborators Wolfgang Pauli (1900-58), Max Born (1882-1970), Hendrik Kramers (1894-1952), Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), Niels Bohr (1885-1962) and Paul Dirac (1902-84). On the other…