President Gordon had hoped that schrödinger would arrive in Oxford by October 21, so that he could matriculate and receive the M.A. degree that had been arranged for him (a requirement for the fellowship), but the Vllth Solvay Conference was to be held in Brussels, October 22 to 29, and he was obliged to attend this. The schrödingers stayed at the elegant Hotel Gallia et Brittanique, and as usual Erwin arrived looking more like a Tirolean mountaineer than a distinguished scientist. Hilde March joined them there, and she wrote to Lindemann that she would be coming to Oxford with the schrödingers, while her husband would be delayed. He replied that they were looking forward to seeing her and he hoped that she would ‘persuade Professor March to come over as soon as possible’.

Seventh Solvay Conference

The Vllth Council of Physics of the Solvay Institute, devoted to ‘Structure and Properties of Atomic Nuclei’, was opened by its President, Paul Langevin, on October 23 at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. Thirty-five of the most eminent workers in the field comprised the members of the scientific committee and the invited members of conference. Six members were from Cambridge. The German universities were represented by Walter Bothe (Heidelberg), Werner Heisenberg, Pieter Debye (Leipzig), and Lise Meitner who was still holding out at the Hahn Institute in Berlin. Marie Curie and Frederic Joliot, and both Maurice and Louis de Broglie came from Paris. The only American member was Ernest Lawrence from Berkeley. This was the first conference devoted to nuclear structure and nuclear reactions; with the discoveries of the neutron and positron, dramatic progress had been achieved in this field during the past few years and the results presented at the conference were important and exciting.

The discussions after the formal papers were extensive and lively, but schrödinger took little part in them.