Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 01:21
With the confirmation in 1922 of the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics corresponding to 1921, Albert Einstein (Germany, 1879-1955, United States) began a tour of the world that took him to Spain in 1923. When the centenary of this visit, which lasted 19 days, the University of Murcia, together with the Academy of Sciences of the Region of Murcia, commemorates this trip with the exhibition ‘Spanish science before Einstein and relativity’, which can be visited throughout the month of October in the María Moliner General Library and in the Faculty of Chemistry of the Espinardo Campus. Seven display cases and eighteen information panels, in total.
Einstein arrived in Barcelona on February 23, 1923 and his host was Esteban Terradas. In the Session Room of the Palace of the Provincial Council (current Palace of the Generalitat) he gave a course of three lectures for which he would charge 3,500 pesetas. On Thursday, March 1, he traveled to Madrid. Interviewed on the train for ‘ABC’ by the Hungarian journalist of Jewish origin Andrés Révész, he made a confession reassuring readers: “I am not a revolutionary, not even in the scientific field, since I want to preserve as much as possible and I intend to eliminate only which hinders the progress of science. Einstein was awarded an Honoris Causa Doctorate by the Central University of Madrid, where he also gave the course of three lectures. Among the material on display, a receipt signed by Einstein himself on March 3, 1923 for a conference with a remuneration of 4,022.95 pesetas stands out.
On Sunday the 4th, King Alfonso XIII gave him the corresponding academic diploma from the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences. The last scientific meeting of the German genius in the capital would take place on Friday the 9th: a conference-gathering organized by José Ortega y Gasset at the Student Residence.
Photographic material
On Sunday, March 11, he left Madrid back to Berlin, spending three days in Zaragoza. There he would give two more lectures on special relativity and general relativity in the assembly hall shared by the Faculties of Medicine and Sciences. The stay in Zaragoza was completed with the receipt of the diploma as a corresponding academic from the Academy of Exact, Physical-Chemical and Natural Sciences.
At the Palace of the Provincial Council of Barcelona he taught a course for which he charged 3,500 pesetas
In addition, images of the events that Einstein participated in during his tour of Spain, publications by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Leonardo Torres Quevedo, and a showcase dedicated to the History of Science at the University of Murcia, among other bibliographic gems, are exhibited.
Francisco A. González Redondo, professor of History of Science at the Complutense University of Madrid, is the curator of this interesting proposal.
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