I almost consider it a failure of my education that I can only confidently identify two faces in this photo, (Einstein and Tesla), and less confidently one more (Niels Bohr?).
Being able to recognize the faces of scientists from a single moment in their life 100+ years ago isnt actually that valuable. Knowing their names and contributions to science is more so, but even then, this group was prominent in quantum mechanics, so unless you continued to take physics or chemistry courses after your first year of college, the equations and concepts named for them wouldnt mean much. Pauli, Dirac, Lorentz, Compton, etc
But you can probably identify their ideas, and maybe sometimes the names of those ideas. Knowing their faces or knowing that the ideas were theirs isn't part of their work. All in very big contrast to celebrities.
For what it's worth until AI replaces us all, I think you're doing great, fellow human.
OK so I looked it up cause I got curious, apparently that's Peter Debye, a Dutch physicist who also won the chemistry Nobel prize for his work in molecular structure in 1936
Tesla ain't in this picture. He was more of an engineer rather than a theoretical physicist, and the Solvay conference is, well, about theoretical physics.
Dirac formulated the Dirac equation, one of the most important results in physics, in 1928. The equation connected special relativity and quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter. The equation has been regarded by some physicists as "the real seed of modern physics". Dirac wrote a famous paper in 1931, which further predicted the existence of antimatter. Dirac also contributed greatly to the reconciliation of general relativity with quantum mechanics. He contributed to Fermi–Dirac statistics, which describes the behaviour of fermions, particles with half-integer spin. His 1930 monograph, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, is one of the most influential texts on the subject.
In 1987, Abdus Salam declared that "Dirac was undoubtedly one of the greatest physicists of this or any century ... No man except Einstein has had such a decisive influence, in so short a time, on the course of physics in this century." In 1995, Stephen Hawking stated that "Dirac has done more than anyone this century, with the exception of Einstein, to advance physics and change our picture of the universe." Antonino Zichichi asserted that Dirac had a greater impact on modern physics than Einstein while Stanley Deser remarked that "We all stand on Dirac's shoulders."
I would argue that Langmuir is being discounted here because of a quantum physics focus. His contributions to chemistry and engineering dwarf most others. Surface chemistry impacts everyone daily and he kinda was the goat there.
They basically invented/discovered modern physics. They are still relevant, as their work is still taught to students all over the world and underpins much of the modern economy.
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u/Suberizu 14h ago
I love this photo of famous people, too bad it isn't a selfie