Background

The First Solvay Conference on Physics took place in 1911 at the Metropole Hotel in Brussels. It was followed by 49 other Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry. As it is well known, these played a crucial role in the development of modern science.

The list of all 27 Solvay Conferences on Physics may be found HERE.

The particular feature of the Solvay Conferences is that discussions are central. The format designed by Lorentz, with few

«rapporteur reports» followed by intense discussions is still adopted today as it favours scientific interactions among the participants. The reports are normally circulated before the meeting. Participants do not come to Solvay conferences to present a talk, but rather to take an active part in the discussions. Both reports and discussions are published in the proceedings.

The famous 1927 Conference «Electrons and photons» is exemplary from this point of view. The meeting lasted 6 days. There were only 5 reports by W.L. Bragg, Compton, de Broglie, Born-Heisenberg, and Schrödinger. The rest of the time was devoted to discussions, in which the other 24 participants (among whom were Bohr, Mme Curie, Dirac, Einstein, Kramers, Lorentz, Planck, to name a few) were extremely involved. [The proceedings also contain a report by Bohr, but this report was only written for the proceedings and not presented at the conference.]

The Scientific Committee for Physics of the Solvay Institutes is in charge of the Solvay conferences.

The 28th Solvay conference will again be devoted to central questions of quantum mechanics, including quantum entanglement and quantum information in various physical contexts as well as quantum computing.

The conference will start on Wednesday May 18 in the evening with a welcome reception and end on Saturday
21 May around 6:00 p.m. - *All participants are expected to attend the full conference.*

Prepared comments

The discussions of the reports is coordinated with short, 1-slide-maximum prepared comments that cannot last more than 3 minutes. If you wish to present a prepared comment, please contact the chair of the relevant session.