A meeting of the History of Science Group of the European Physical Society was held at the L’Ecole Supérieure Physique, Chimie Industrielle (ESPCI) in Rue Vauquelin, Paris on the 17th September 2004. It was organised by Denis Weaire of Trinity College, Dublin, who was elected chairman of the History of Physics group of the Institute of Physics at the AGM on 31 October 2004.
It brought together some fifty physicists from several countries meeting under the title of an "Entente Cordiale" in physics. Etienne Guyon gave a brief history of the major French Science Museums. This talk was followed by one from Neil Brown of the Science Museum in London who discussed the extra-mural and outreach activities taking place within the United Kingdom, especially those aimed at people who would not normally consider visiting a science museum.
Jack Treiner described the geometrical method of Newton and Hooke and the area law of Kepler by finite differences, which contrasts with the differential calculus approach of Euler. Several contributions (such as those by Moniez and P. Radvanyi) talked about the history of radioactivity, which took place in this part of the ESPCI and pointed out the problem of identifying the exact location of Becquerel's laboratory in rue Cuvier.
In the afternoon, Michael Coey of Trinity College, Dublin gave an excellent lecture detailing the life and scientific work of Louis Néel, who was born a hundred years ago this year. Robert Cahn described the researches of Guillaume on invar materials, which led to his award of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1920 a year before that awarded to Einstein. The formal part of the meeting was concluded by a few general remarks from Ian Butterworth of Imperial College, London who is the chairman of the Britain and Ireland Institute of Physics. This was followed by a visit to the "Espace des sciences" of the ESPCI where M. Langues demonstrated a reconstruction of the original experiment used by Pierre and Marie Curie in their investigations of radioactivity.
During the meeting several excellent suggestions were put forward for future meetings of the various history of science groups. 2005 is the anniversary of several notable scientists in addition to being the centenary of Einstein's seminal publications. These include the bi-centenary of the birth of the Irish physicist and mathematician Rowan Hamilton and, furthering the spirit of "entente cordiale", it is also the bi-centenary of the work of Young and Laplace. Daniel Thoulouze, who is the director of the CNAM (Musee des Arts and Metiers), emphasised the importance of taking into full account the problems associated with heritage and the conservation of research equipment. A working group looking into these problems will be set up by the French Physical Society and it is suggested that people interested in such matters contact the secretary of the French Physical Society.
Etienne Guyon
translated from the French by P.J.Ford