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Recollections of early years as a physicist in Poland

Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, FRS

Monday, 8 March 1999, 18:00 for 18:30
Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London

Joseph Rotblat was born in Warsaw in 1908 and was educated as a physicist, becoming Assistant Director of the Atomic Physics Institute of the Free University of Poland in 1937. Two years later he moved to Liverpool, and then to Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan project. He quit the project and returned to Liverpool in 1944. From 1950 until 1976 he was Professor of Physics at the University of London and at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He was one of the signatories of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955. In 1957 he co-founded the Pugwash Conferences, serving as its first Secretary-General until 1973, as President from 1988 to 1997, and remaining active in the organisation ever since. In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with the Pugwash Conferences. He is the author of numerous books on nuclear and medical physics, control of nuclear weapons, disarmament, and the Pugwash movement. He is now best known for his work against nuclear weapons, but in this lecture he will go back to the nineteen-thirties and speak about the start of his scientific career in Poland and the start of the nuclear age.

If you wish to attend the lecture, please contact the Honorary Secretary, Neil Brown, by Monday, 1^st March:

Physics and Religion

Saturday, 24^th April 1999

Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London

This will be an afternoon meeting, with four or five speakers. Further details will be announced in due course, by post and on the History Group’s website. For further information before that, please contact the Chairman, John Roche.

Volta and the invention of the electromechanical battery

Saturday, 23^rd October 1999

Oxford

This will be a one-day meeting. Speakers will include Lucio Fregonese on Volta’s theory of electrical force; Willem Hackmann on the history of the concept of contact potential; John Roche on the concept of voltage; Neil Brown on the development of batteries through the 19^th century; and Paola Bertucci on Galvani. Further details will be announced in due course, by post and on the History Group’s website. For further information before that, please contact the Honorary Secretary, Neil Brown:

Post:	C. N. Brown, Honorary Secretary, History of Physics Group Science Museum, South Kensington, LONDON SW7 2DD
Fax:	0171 938 9736
Telephone:	0171 938 8046
e-mail:	n.brown@physics.org

This information has kindly been supplied by the BSHS and is their copyright. Nearly all these meetings are open to people who are not members of the society concerned, sometimes at a slightly higher cost. We remind readers to check before departure that the event has not been cancelled. All dates are in 1999 except where otherwise stated.

Royal Institution Centre for the History of Science and Technology

As part of the celebrations to mark the bicentenary of the founding of the Royal Institution, all the RICHST Research seminars during the year will deal with topics relating to the history of the Royal Institution and those who worked in it. Further information from Dr. Frank James, Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1X 4BS.

“Theoretical improvements accompanied by practical advantages”: Rumford, Banks, Davy
at Council Room
on 30^th March (18:00, with tea from 17:30)
Professor David Knight (Durham University)

Faraday
on 27^th April (half day meeting)

British Society for the History of Science

On Time: History, Science, Commemoration
at National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool
on 16^th – 19^th September

This conference is organised in conjunction with the Royal Historical Society and the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside. The approach of the Millennium has heightened awareness of the conventions and cultures of time. But what is time? This question has been of growing interest amongst historians. Their research is markedly interdisciplinary, spilling over the boundaries between social, economic and cultural historians, and historians of science, technology, medicine and mathematics. Papers with a wide interest and historiographical scope are invited. Possible sessions include: Beginnings and Origin Stories, Commemoration, Maritime Time, Timetables and Technology, Workplaces and Time, Lifetimes and Servitude, Units of Time, Immortality. Offers of papers together with abstracts of 50-100 words should be sent before 1st September 1998 to either Dr William J Ashworth, Department of Economic and Social History, The University of Liverpool, 11 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 3BX or Dr Roland Quinault, School of Historical, Philosophical and Contemporary Studies, Faculty of HTE, University of North London, 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7 8DB.

History of Electricity
at the Royal Institution
on 7^th April

This meeting which is jointly organised with the Royal Institution Centre of Science and Technology and the History of Technology Group of the Institution of Electrical Engineers will mark the bicentenaries of the invention of the electric battery and the founding of the Royal Institution. Speakers will be David Knight, Frank James, Graeme Gooday, Gerrlynn Roberts, Brian Bowers, Colin Hempstead, Gill Cookson and Albert Moyer. Further details from Dr. Frank James, Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, LONDON W1X 4BS; e-mail: fjames@ri.ac.uk.

American Association for the History of Medicine

Annual Meeting
at Brunswick, New Jersey
on 5^th – 9^th May

Offers of papers to and further information from Elizabeth Fee, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bldg 38, Room 1E-21, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethseda, MD 20894, USA

Australian Society of the History of Medicine

6^th Biennial Conference
at University of Sydney
on 7^th – 10^th July

The conference theme will be “Individuals and Institutions in the History of Medicine”. Further details from and offers of papers to 6^th Biennial conference of the Australian Society of the History of Medicine Inc c/- ICMS Pty. Ltd., Locked Bag Q4002. QVB Post Office NSW 1230, Sydney, Australia; e-mail: hom@icms.com.au

European Association for the History of Psychiatry

Neurosciences and Psychiatry: Crossing the Boundaries
at Zurich and Lausanne
on 14^th – 18^th September

Offers of papers on this and relates topics together with a three hundred word abstract should be sent by 30^th January 1999 to Dr med Caroline Jagella, Medizinhistorishes Institut der Universität Zürich, Rämistrasse 71, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland; e-mail cjagella@mhiz.unizh.ch

German Geophysical Society

History of Geophysics and Space Physics
at Munich
on March 2000

The topic of the meeting will be the development of geophysics over the last few decades. Further information from Dr. Wilfried Schröder, Hechelstrasse 8, D-28777 Bremen-Roennebeck, Germany

International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy

Long- and Short-Term Variability in Sun’s History and Global Change
at Birmingham
on July

Topics will include papers from history, archaeology, solar physics, astrophysics among other subjects dealing with historically observed minima in the sun’s activities. Offers of papers, by 15^th January, to and further details from Dr Wilfried Schröder, Hechelstrasse 8, D-28777 Bremen-Roennebeck, Germany

International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group

5^th International Conference
at Pavia University
on 15^th – 19^th September

This conference will bring together scientists, teachers, historians, philosophers, mathematicians and educators. This meeting will also contribute to the local celebrations of the bicentenary of Alessandro Volta’s creation of the battery in 1799. Further details from Dr E A Gianetto, Dipartimento di Fisica ‘A Volta’, Universita di Pavia, via A Bassi 6, 27100 Pavia. Italy; e-mail: volta99@pv.infn.it; www.cilea.it/volta99

John Ray Trust

John Ray and His Successors: The Clergyman as Biologist
at Braintree
on 18^th – 21^st March

This will be a joint meeting with the Institute of Biology History Committee and the Society for the History of Natural History. The major theme of this conference will centre on the relations of science and religion as exemplified in the life and work of Ray, his contemporaries and successors. Keynote speakers will include John Brooke “Wise men nowadays think otherwise” and Michael Reiss “On being a biologist and a cleric”, plus others including Paul Foster, Chris Smith, Sandy Baker, David Knight, Mark Seaward, Edward Larson and Peter Bowler. Bookings and details from Janet Turner, John Ray Trust, Town Hall Centre, Braintree, Essex, CM7 3YG. Tel. 01376 557 776; Fax 01376 344 345

Royal Meteorological Society History Group

London weather through the centuries - part 2
at Science Museum
on 27^th March

This meeting will cover meteorology in London in the 19^th and 20^th centuries; Luke Howard, observations at Greenwich and on the Air Ministry roof. Further details from the Group Secretary, M E Crewe, Royal Meteorological Society, 104 Oxford Road, Reading, RG1 7LL.

Meeting to Celebrate the Society’s 150^th Anniversary
at the Royal Society
on 3^rd – 4^th April 2000

This meeting, which is co-sponsored by the Institution of Civil Engineers, Royal Astronomical Society and Royal Geographical Society will cover the history of the Society, its antecedents, its contemporaries - the Scottish Meteorological Society and the British Rainfall Organisation, and the Societies with whom it shared many interests and members - the Royal Society, Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Geographical Society and the Institute of Civil Engineers. Themes will include: Formation of the early English meteorological societies, from 1823, the Society’s administration, premises, membership and publications, G J Symons and the Meteorological Magazine, the Society’s relations with instrument makers, and its exhibitions, the Society’s connections with medicine and the natural sciences, with astronomy and upper air, with technology, and with education, the Scottish Meteorological Society, 1855-1921, with Ben Nevis Observatory, English and Scottish Met. Societies’ interests in maritime meteorology, British Rainfall Organisation, 1860-1919, and the work of H R Mill, the Society and the Royal Geographical Society, the Society’s activities during the past fifty years. Further information will be available later from The History Group Hon Sec, Royal Meteorological Society, 104 Oxford Road, Reading, RG1 7LL.

Society for Hellenic Cartography

18^th International Conference On The History of Cartography
at Athens
on 11^th – 16^th July

This meeting is organised with the National Hellenic Research Foundation, in collaboration with Imago Mundi Ltd. The theme of the conference is “The Cartography of the Mediterranean World”. Offers of papers to and further information from Dr. George Tolias, 18^th International Conference on the History of Cartography, The National Hellenic Research foundation, 48 Vassileos Konstantinou Avenue, GR-116 35, Athens, Greece; e-mail: gtolias@eie.gr

Society for the History of Natural History

Drawing from Nature: Art and Illustration in the Natural History Sciences
at the Natural History Museum
on 14^th – 16^th April

This meeting, held jointly with the Natural History Museum will explore the role of illustrations and of illustrators in the construction of natural history. Invited speakers are Martin Kemp, David Freedberg, David Scrase, Nicolas Barker and Andrew Scott. Offers of papers to and further information from Paul Cooper, Zoology Library, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD; e-mail: p.cooper@nhm.ac.uk

Trinity College, Cambridge

Teaching and Learning in 19^th Century Cambridge
at Trinity College, Cambridge
on 8^th and 9^th April

Topics to be covered include the formal courses of instruction carried out by university officers and college fellows, as well we the coaching system that was so much a part of 19^th century Cambridge, especially in mathematics. But also how the curriculum was influenced by religious and secular ideologies, how students learnt to be students through their social contacts, how academic publication influences and responds to student’s needs and how issues of gender and class affect the curriculum. Please send offers of papers and suggestions for topics to Jonathan Smith, Trinity College Library, Cambridge, CB2 1TQ

University of Plymouth

ECLIPSE 99: Navigational Stimulus to the History of Science
at University of Plymouth
on 9^th – 12^th August

This conference, which coincides with the next total eclipse of the Sun to be visible from England, will explore the impact of navigation on the history of science. Offers of papers to and further information from P A H Seymour, Institute of Marine Studies, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA

page last updated 24 November2012

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