The Galilean Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts in Padua is now an EPS Historic Site, in honour of Galileo Galilei.

The plaque unveiling ceremony took place on January 18, 2025, conducted by the President of the European Physical Society (EPS), Prof. Mairi Sakellariadou, and the President of the Academy, Prof. Giovanna Zaniolo, during the annual academic Galilean Day, in the presence of the academicians and of the public (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Unveiling of the plaque. FLTR: Angela Bracco, President of the Italian Physical Society (SIF), Mairi Sakellariadou ,
President of the European Physical Society (EPS) and Giovanna Zaniolo, President of the Accademia Galileiana. Credits Accademia Galileiana.

The event began with an introduction by Prof. Zaniolo, including the reading of congratulatory messages from the Senator Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, Minister for Institutional Reforms and Regulatory Simplification, and the President of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia. This was followed by a brief explanation by myself of the motivations for the designation (see below), as well as remarks by Prof. Sakellariadou and Prof. Bracco, President of the Italian Physical Society (SIF), on the role of their respective Societies.

Fig. 2: The emblem of the Accademia Galileiana. Credits Accademia Galileiana.

The Academy is the oldest among the scientific ones still active in Italy, having been founded on November 25, 1599, under the name Accademia dei Ricovrati. Its motto, Bipatens animis asylum—inscribed on its emblem (Fig. 2)—is a verse from Boethius, inspired in turn by the allegoric description in Homer’s Odyssey of the Cave of the Naiads, with its two entrances. The motto was chosen to symbolize a refuge for the convergence of contemplative life and active life, between theoretical speculation and practical application.

Fig. 3: “Sala Guariento”, the meeting room of the Accademia. Credits Accademia Galileiana

The ceremony took place in the meeting room of the Accademia (Fig. 3). This, initially the Chapel of the Carrarese Palace, was magnificently decorated by Guariento di Arpo around 1350, one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. At the time, Padua was under the ruling of the Carrarese family, still independent of Venice, that will conquer it in 1405. Born five years after the departure of Giotto from Padua, Guariento dealt with the indelible footprint of the Tuscan genius, while developing an original pictorial language echoing the culture of his city. In the frescoes of the Chapel, he focuses on the divine power, narrating episodes from the Bible. The one in Fig. 4 is from the Book of Daniel, on the Babylonian exile of the Jews. Having three young Jews refused the order of Nebuchadnezzar to worship a statue, the king commanded to hurl them into a fiery furnace, but they were saved by the Angel of the Lord. In the painting, the king appears astonished, above the disordered mass of terrified soldiers, in stark contrast to the solemn calmness of the angel and the three victims, emerging unscathed from the furnace.

Fig. 4: The Three Young Men in the Fiery Furnace, by Guariento di Arpo. Credits Accademia Galileiana

The name of the Accademia was changed to Galileiana in recent years, to celebrate Galileo Galilei as one of its founding members. We read his name in the minutes of the first session on November 25, 1599, the only scientist amongst university professors of law and of philosophy, men of letters, learned nobles and quite a number of ecclesiastics. Some academicians were good friends of  the young Tuscan, having together discussions on a wide range of philosophical and cultural issues, being him versed in music, in drawing and in writing of science, not only opening the way to modern science but also as masterpieces of Italian literature. On the other hand, the fight would become unavoidable with the Paduan philosophers, dogmatic followers of Aristoteles, not able to accept the Galileian discoveries.

Galilei had already been active in the organization of the group since several months. Indeed, on the Ides of August 1599, he had signed a note in the Album amicorum of Thomas Seget, describing himself as “Noble Florentine Mathematician and Professor at the Paduan Academy.” Seget, a Scottish poet then in Veneto and one of the first foreign Ricovrati, would later be in Prague in 1610 with Kepler when the astronomer confirmed the Medicean Stars. There, Seget would compose the famous epigram with the words Vicisti Galileae.

Fig. 5: The trajectory of a projectile; a) asymmetric in Nova scientia by Nicolò Tartaglia in 1537; b) symmetric for Galilei in 1599

In his dedication, Galilei drew a parabola (Fig. 5 b) to illustrate the motion of projectiles, a trajectory he had discovered through an experiment conducted with Guidobaldo del Monte in 1592, the year Galilei arrived in Padua. In his book of motion, Discorsi e dimostrazioni intorno a due nuove scienze, published in 1638, Galilei will describe the experiment: he launched a metal, perfectly spherical, ball on an inclined surface, such that the ball, gently pressing on the surface, would leave a trace of its passage. The experiment is remarkably simple, and revolutionary. Until then, following Aristotle, it was believed that, on Earth, there were only two types of motion: violent and natural, both rectilinear—initially violent in the direction of the cannon's barrel, finally natural, vertically downward toward the Earth's centre, as the initial impetus was exhausted. This was also the case of the most important textbook on the subject, the Nova scientia by the great mathematician Nicolò Tartaglia. Galilei demonstrated that the motion is symmetrical in ascent and descent, entirely of the same type. This marked the beginning of his journey toward discovering the laws of motion, a path he was still following in 1599 and which would lead him to them in 1604.

The text of the plaque, after commemorating Galilei’s contributions, also notes that: “Among the early members of the Ricovrati was Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, elected a member in 1669 and that became the first woman in the world to earn a university degree in 1678. In subsequent centuries, the Academy counted among its members figures such as Benjamin Franklin and John Herschel among foreign scientists, and among Italians Tullio Levi-Civita, Gregorio Ricci Curbastro, Bruno Rossi and Antonio Favaro, who oversaw the monumental National Edition of the Works of Galileo Galilei.

Author: Silvia Nicolai

The « Institut de Physique Nucléaire » (IPN) in Orsay, France, was recently added to the list of the Historic Sites of the European Physical Society. The laboratory, which recently became part of the Laboratoire Irène Joliot Curie (IJCLab), received this recognition with the following motivation: « Initiated in 1956 by Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie as an extension outside Paris of the renowned « Radium Institute » founded by Marie Curie, where in 1934 they had discovered artificial radioactivity, and of the « Nuclear Chemistry Laboratory » founded by Frédéric Joliot, the IPN hosted the first French big accelerator (a synchrocyclotron) which started operating in 1958. The creation of the IPN motivated the development of the Orsay scientific pole. Since then the IPN, which has now become part of the IJCLab laboratory, played and plays a pivotal role in the study of nuclear and hadronic physics, and beyond. »

The inclusion of IPN Orsay to the list of Historic Sites of EPS was celebrated on October 13 2023 in the Joliot-Curie amphitheater of IJCLab, with a half-day event comprising a ceremony and a mini-conference. The director of IJCLab, Achille Stocchi, opened the ceremony with a welcome speech, followed by a few words by Michel Guidal, deputy vice-president for research of the Paris-Saclay University and former director of IPN, and by Marcella Grasso, deputy scientific director of IN2P3 and former director of the Research Division at IPN. Then Luc Bergé, president of EPS, presented the role and activities of EPS, and, in particular, described the Historic Sites program. Finally, a commemorative plaque dedicated to Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, showcasing the motivation for the recognition and the EPS logo, was unveiled by Luc Bergé along with Hélène Joliot-Langevin, daughter of Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, and Alison Bruce, Chair of the Nuclear Physics Division Board of EPS. Other members of the NPD Board and the former directors of IPN also took part in the unveiling.

The mini-conference focused on the history of IPN, from its beginnings to nowadays. Hélène Joliot-Langevin, emeritus research director at CNRS and former director of the Physics Division at IPN Orsay, opened the conference presenting the origins of IPN in the historical context of the end of World-War II. She outlined, in particular, the efforts her parents made to reinstate France at the forefront of nuclear-physics research in Europe, and their political investment for a pacific use of nuclear power. Then Joel Pouthas, former director of the “Detectors and R&D” Division at IPN and historian of physics, gave an in-depth lecture on the history of IPN from its beginnings to recent years, a history marked by the construction and operation of various accelerators, made possible by several notable scientists supported by an outstanding staff of engineers and technicians. The former director of IPN, Sydney Galès, presented an overview of the scientific highlights of IPN throughout its more than 60 years of history, which spanned from low-energy nuclear physics, to hadron and high-energy physics, theory, radiochemistry, accelerators technology, and medical and societal applications of nuclear physics. The mini-conference was closed by a presentation of Silvia Leoni, professor of the Università di Milano and INFN scientist, which focused on the role of IPN in European low-energy nuclear physics, with a particular focus on the main achievements of the last ~15 years as well as on ongoing and future projects and collaborations.

All the presentations, photos, and a video-recording of the event can be found on the indico page: https://indico.ijclab.in2p3.fr/event/9821/

Luc Bergé, Hélène Joliot-Langevin, and Alison Bruce unveil the commemorative plaque - image credit: Silvia Nicolai

The presidents of EPS and SFP (French Physical Society), the speakers, the deputy director of IJCLab, the former directors of IPN, and the members of the NPD-EPS Board pose with the commemorative plaque at the end of the half-day event.

The Stachelschützenhaus in Basel, CH, that housed Daniel Bernoulli's Physics Cabinet - images: Gina Gunaratnam/EPS

Author: Gina Gunaratnam

On 22nd September, the former home of the Physics Cabinet of Daniel Bernoulli in Basel was inaugurated as an EPS Historic Site.

During his time at the University of Basel, Daniel Bernoulli assembled a large collection of demonstration experiments which he used for teaching and public lectures. These were housed in the Stachelschützenhaus ("house of the crossbow men"). The building is still used by the university and is currently the centre for clinical virology.

The event started at the University of Basel. Ernst Meyer, Friedrich-Karl Thielemann and Philipp Treutlein, from the Department of Physics, welcomed the participants.

Anne Pawsey, Secretary General of the European Physical Society (EPS), introduced the Society and its Historic Sites programme. She was followed by Martin Mattmüller, from the Bernoulli-Euler Society, who described the life of Daniel Bernoulli in a captivating presentation which included descriptions of the experiments and quotations from attendees at his lectures.

Stephan Rosswog, from the University of Hamburg and Stockholm University, showed how Bernoulli’s theorem remains relevant in the extreme conditions of neutron star mergers.  Rossweg highlighted the importance of multi-messenger astronomy to obtain sufficient complementary data, as well as the enormous computational challenge of simulating these complex processes across huge length and time scales.

After the lectures, attendees walked to the nearby Stachelschützenhaus, where they were introduced to the building's current use for research. The assembly visited a part of the house before gathering in front of the plaque describing Bernoulli's achievements and where he kept his physics devices. Anne Pawsey and Philipp Treutlein officially distinguished the house as the 6th EPS Historic Site in Switzerland.

More info

• EPS Historic Sites programme
• Article in the newsletter of the University of Basel (in German)

EPS Secretary General Anne Pawsey explaining the Historic Sites Programme

Martin Mattmüller from the Bernoulli-Euler Society

Stefan Rosswog from the University of Hamburg and Stockholm University

The participants in front of the Stachelschützenhaus

Anne Pawsey and Philipp Treutlein officially inaugurating the new Swiss EPS Historic Site

The plaque in front of the Stachelschützenhaus

On 7th October 2022, personalities including representatives of the governing bodies and partners of the Institut d'études scientifiques de Cargèse (IESC, CNRS/Univ. Côte d'Azur/Univ. de Corse Pasquale Paoli), gathered for the ceremony to receive the "historic site" distinction from the European Physical Society (EPS). The IESC thus becomes the 6th site to receive this award in France, two years after the Ecole de physique des Houches. On this occasion, a commemorative plaque was unveiled by Luc Bergé, President of the EPS and Guy Wormser, President of the French Physical Society (SFP). "The Institut d'études scientifiques de Cargèse has participated in the history of physics through the great names who have stayed there, but the history continues to be made. The younger generations who are here to learn will later set up projects and remember that they came through Cargèse," said Luc Bergé.

The Institut d'études scientifiques de Cargèse (IESC) received this award for its strong historical involvement in the dissemination of modern knowledge and concepts in physics.
The IESC was born in 1960 from an idea of Maurice Levy, professor at the Faculty of Sciences in Paris and director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics at the ENS. 60 years later, more than 700 schools have been organised and about 2000 international students are welcomed every year.

Created to host physics conferences, the IESC has opened up to other disciplines over time, making interdisciplinarity one of its trademarks. The concept behind this school remains the same as that of its "big sister" Les Houches: to offer quality training on contemporary advances, by renowned scientists, in an idyllic setting conducive to reflection and meetings.

The site where the IESC is located in Corsica, France - image credit: IESC

EPS President Luc Bergé unveiling the plaque with SFP President Guy Wormser - image credit: IESC

The plaque in front of the IESC building - image credit: IESC

We proudly announce the latest EPS Historic Site in the Netherlands: the former Zeeman laboratory in Amsterdam. On 25th May, Pieter Zeeman's birthday, the plaque on the building was unveiled by EPS Vice-President Petra Rudolf. The Zeeman laboratory was opened in 1923 at Plantage Muidergracht 4 in Amsterdam, it was specially equipped for experiments that were carried out in the group of Nobel Prize Laureate Pieter Zeeman. Pieter Zeeman was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902 together with Hendrik Lorentz. Today the building is inhabited, the laboratory has been converted into several apartments. The unveiling was actually planned in 2021 in the context of 100 years of Netherlands’ Physical Society, but had to be postponed until 2022 due to Covid-19. The other EPS Historic Sites in the Netherlands are Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory in Leiden, the NatLab in Eindhoven and Sonnenborgh in Utrecht.

Members of the Van der Waals-Zeeman laboratory of the University of Amsterdam made this short movie about the work of Pieter Zeeman and their own work.

photos: NNV

More about the EPS Historic Sites programme

• The Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory and the Instituut-Lorentz
• The Philips Nat Lab
  
• The Sonnenborgh Museum and Observatory
• List of inaugurated EPS Historic Sites