Nobel Laureate Meetings at Lindau

The Nobel Laureate Meetings at Lindau is a scientific conference held yearly in Lindau, Germany, inviting Nobel prize winners to present to and interact with young researchers from all over the world.

History

In 1951, the two physicians Gustav Parade and Franz Karl Hein from Lindau convinced the Swedish Count Lennart Bernadotte of Wisborg, living near Lindau, to assume patronage of the scientific meeting they were setting up to facilitate German students the exchange with Nobel laureates of medicine. During the turmoil of World War II, Germany had been largely excluded from worldwide scientific exchange. The initiative soon enjoyed considerable success as many Laureates accepted the invitation of Count Lennart to meet in Lindau, close to his castle on the isle of Mainau in Lake Constance. Over the years the meetings grew, and laureates from all three scientific Nobel disciplines, physiology or medicine, chemistry and physics were also invited. Each year in turn, the Lindau Meetings were devoted specifically to one of these disciplines. From the 1970s, also winners of the Nobel prize for economics began to join the meetings occasionally.

At the age of eighty, in 1989, Count Lennart resigned from chairing the meetings and his much younger wife Countess Sonja Bernadotte became head of the 'Council for the Organization of the Nobel Laureates Meeting at Lindau' (4). She demonstrated in doing so how firmly the Bernadotte family was committed to continue the tradition of the Lindau Meetings, considering the fact that the grandfather of Count Lennart, Gustav V., was the first Swedish King to award the Nobel Prize at Stockholm in 1905. Countess Sonja successfully increased the international significance of the events by inviting about 600 university trainees every year from an increasing number of countries world-wide, by introducing a Joint Assembly of Laureates of the three scientific Nobel disciplines together every five years, and by establishing the 'Foundation Lindau Nobel Prizewinners Meeting at Lake Constance', in the year 2000. Thanks to this foundation the Council of the Lindau Meetings finally disposed of a solid financial basis for the organization of the yearly meetings. Count Lennart died in 2004 and his wife Countess Sonja Bernadotte in 2008. Since then their daughter Countess Bettina Bernadotte is head of the Council.

Recently, the Lindau Meetings Council biannually organises in addition to the yearly meetings on natural sciences as well a separate conference for Nobel Laureates in economics with students from all over the world.

Aim and Structure

The aim of the Lindau Meetings is to let young researchers interact closely with their supposed role models. Therefore the meetings do not only consist of presentations given by the laureates, but also of panel discussions, discussions in small groups and even joint dinners and lunches. The participating young researchers claim that the informal atmosphere and the intensive peer-to-peer contact provides a unique experience, while the organisers consider it crucial to both aims, scientific exchange and inspiration of junior scientists. In addition to these principal aims of scientific exchange and inspiration, the Lindau Meetings offer a unique occasion to follow closely the development of sciences and and the advancement of knowledge to the benefit of mankind (4).

Participants

Around 20 Nobel Laureates in sciences have participated usually at every disciplinary meeting in the past. At the Joint Assemblies gathering all three scientific Nobel disciplines and being organized every fifth year since 2000, about double as many Laureates have participated i.e. 50-60. Regarding the decade of Nobel Laureate meetings between 1996 - 2005, the participating Laureates are named under (4) together with brief comments on their lectures.

Economics Meeting 2008:

• George Akerlof (2001)
• Robert Aumann (2005)
• Robert Fogel (1993)
• Clive Granger (2003)
• Finn Kydland (2004)
• Daniel McFadden (2000)
• Robert Mundell (1999)
• John Nash (1994)
• Edmund Phelps (2006)
• Myron Scholes (1997)
• Reinhard Selten (1994)
• Robert Solow (1987)
• Joseph Stiglitz (2001)
• Roger Myerson (2007)
• Muhammad Yunus (peace 2006)

Physics Meeting 2008:

• Werner Arber (medicine 1978)
• Nicolaas Bloembergen (1981)
• Johann Deisenhofer (chemistry 1988)
• Manfred Eigen (chemistry 1967)
• Riccardo Giacconi (2002)
• Ivar Giaever (1973)
• Donald Glaser (1960)
• Roy Glauber (2005)
• David Gross (2004)
• Peter Grünberg (2007)
• John Hall (2005)
• Theodor Hänsch (2005)
• Gerardus 't Hooft (1999)
• Robert Huber (chemistry 1988)
• Brian Josephson (1973)
• Hartmut Michel (chemistry 1988)
• Douglas Osheroff (1996)
• William Phillips (1997)
• Robert Richardson (1996)
• Carlo Rubbia (1984)
• George Smoot (2006)
• Jack Steinberger (1988)
• Martinus Veltman (1999)
• Klaus von Klitzing (1985)

References

External links

• www.lindau-nobel.de - official website
• Nobel laureates' lectures online - video streams of all 2008 lectures
• Interviews with Nobel Laureates attending the Lindau Meeting 2004/5/6
• (4) Hebel: Nobel Laureates meet Students, Lindau 1996-2005 - On the Edge of Knowledge. Copyright 2008, Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag, Baden-Baden, ISBN 978-3-935176-84-2
• [1] - Lindau meeting attendee blog
• [2] - Nature video interviews with Laureates
• http://knol.google.com/k/wolfgang-hebel/nobel-laureates-at-Lindau-2010