image credit: University of Basel

22nd September 2023, University of Basel
Original publication: Website of the Swiss Physical Society

The event is intended to honor Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782, a member of the world-renowned Bernoulli family of mathematicians and scientists that had been based in Basel since 1623), especially for his role in the development of physics in Switzerland, Europe, and the world, by making the original site of his research in Basel, the Physics Cabinet in the Stachelschützenhaus, an EPS Historic Site.

Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) studied initially medicine in Basel, Heidelberg, and Strasbourg, concluding with a thesis on respiration (containing experimental and mathematical approaches). During his scientific life he worked across many disciplines (with a focus on physics and its mathematical foundations). In 1725 he was appointed to the St. Petersburg Academy. In 1726 Leonhard Euler followed him to St. Petersburg. Later on Bernoulli intended to return to Basel for a chair in physics. But only after a vacancy in 1733 he was first successful in obtaining a professorship in anatomy and botany, being offered finally a professorship in physics in 1750. He then taught physics until 1776.

His most comprehensive work, the "Hydrodynamica" of 1733/1738 achieved a fundamental advance in hydrodynamics and laid the foundation for later progress, which included the well-known "Bernoulli Principle", relating the speed of a fluid to its potential energy. He published 74 papers and won a total of 10 Grand Paris Academy Prizes for topics in astronomy, physics, and applications to nautical problems. He was a pioneer in the development of mathematical physics by using the powerful calculus of Leibniz in Newton’s theories.

Bernoulli's predecessor as professor of physics at the University of Basel, Benedict Staehelin (1695-1750), had started a collection of physics devices and instruments that he had acquired for demonstration purposes. These pieces were set up in the 'Physics Cabinet' (the south wing of the "Stachelschützenhaus", built in 1729). Bernoulli added many more apparatuses for his research and lectures on physics – among them the experiment for the "Demonstration of the Hydrostatic Paradox" – which demonstrates that the pressure in a liquid is independent of the shape of the vessel and depends only on the height of the liquid column. Bernoulli had thus significantly expanded the collection of Basel's 'Physics Cabinet'.

While the "Stachelschützenhaus" has later been used by various other University Institutes (presently it hosts the Clinical Virology), it was the place, where Daniel Bernoulli worked for a quarter of a century, undertook research and gave his public experimental physics lectures that enjoyed great popularity. For this reason the EPS has accepted our proposal to make the "Stachelschützenhaus" an EPS Historic Site. The inauguration will take place on 22nd September 2023.

Organisation: Philipp Treutlein, Chair of the Physics Department, Ernst Meyer, President Platform MAP/SCNAT, Friedrich-Karl Thielemann, Prof. emer.

Overview of the program