The war and the Solvay Conferences on Physics
For Marcel Brillouin, a French physicist and member of the Scientific Committee of the International Solvay Institute for Physics, it is inconceivable to resume scientific relations with the German scientists. The latter will, moreover, be excluded from the Solvay Conferences until 1927.
Marcel Brillouin’s resentment of the Germans is deeply rooted. It extends to certain scientists from neutral countries, namely the Netherlands and Switzerland. In his mind, a truly international meeting, as before the war, is now impossible.
In 1919 already, Hendrik Lorentz wrote a note on the importance of the role to be played by the Solvay Institute for Physics in the development of physics in the wake of the war. He believed it was unthinkable to ignore German progress in physics and to exclude the German scientists indefinitely from the Conferences.
Ernest Solvay adopts a more nuanced view regarding the German scientists than some of his compatriots or some French scientists. Nevertheless, he still favours a temporary ban on Germans.
The signing of the Locarno Treaties in October 1925 and Germany’s admission to the League of Nations in 1926 enable Hendrik Lorentz and the members of the Administrative Committee of the International Solvay Institute for Physics to lift the exclusion of the German scientists.
