The colloquium was initiated by Paul Ehrenfest in 1912. It is
now called the Colloquium Ehrenfestii and traditionally takes place Wednesday
evenings at 19:30 hours. After 1 hour there is a 15 minutes coffee/tea break
and the speaker continues for another 15-30 minutes. It has been a good custom
to interrupt the speaker with questions during the colloquium, frequently
leading to interesting discussions.
From November 1998 a three course meal (including coffee and wine) is catered
on site at 18:00 hours, for anyone attending the colloquium. The cost is kept
low. The colloquium is generously sponsered already for many years by the
Lorentz-Fonds, in memory of the other great theoretical physicist of Leiden,
whose name is now attachted to the Instituut-Lorentz for theoretical physics,
the guardian of the colloquium Ehrenfestii; it is still going strong
today.
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Colloquium Ehrenfestii in 2000
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24 May
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C.M. Varma (Bell Labs, Murray Hill/Leiden)
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Quantum Criticality in the High Tc
Superconductivity Phenomena
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3 May
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H. Satz (Bielefeld)
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Quark Matter and Nuclear Collisions
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12 Apr
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D.I. Olive (Swansea/Utrecht)
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Electromagnetic Duality
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29 Mar
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E.P.J. van den Heuvel (UvA)
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Jan van Paradijs -- Legacy in Gamma-Ray Burst Research
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8 Mar
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D. Dieks (Utrecht)
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Does space exist? A relationist view of space and time
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16 Feb
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H. van Driel (Toronto)
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Quantum Interference Control of Semiconductors
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26 Jan
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B. Nienhuis (UvA)
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Quasicrystals - what shall we do with the drunken tiler
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Colloquium Ehrenfestii in 1999
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8 Dec
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R.H. Stuewer (Minneapolis)
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The Case of the Elusive Particles: Nuclear Disintegration and
the Cambridge-Vienna Controversy
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24 Nov
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A. Connes (IHES, Bures-sur-Yvette)
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Noncommutative Geometry
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10 Nov
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H. Bohr (Lyngby, Denmark)
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Coherent topological modes in Biomolecules
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27 Oct
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P. Grassberger (Jülich/Wuppertal)
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Go with the winners: a simulation strategy between
evolutionary and Monte Carlo algorithms
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13 Oct
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M.V. Berry (Bristol/Leiden)
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Quantum Indistinguishability
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22 Sep
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A.D. Stone (Yale)
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Classical and quantum chaos in asymmetric optical resonant
cavities
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15 Sep
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R. Bruinsma (UCLA)
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Physical aspects of DNA condensation
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12 May
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M. de Jong (NIKHEF)
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Neutrino: masses, mixing and oscillations
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21 Apr
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A.K. Geim (Nijmegen)
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When frogs fly and ideal diamagnets flaunt
paramagnetism
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14 Apr
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S. Hunklinger (Heidelberg)
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Indications for a macroscopic state of tunneling
systems in glasses
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24 Mar
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J. de Boer (Leiden)
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How much information does string theory give us?
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3 Mar
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D. Lohse (TU-Twente)
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Sonoluminescence: When bubbles glow
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10 Feb
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C.H. Townes (Berkeley)
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How the Laser Happened
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20 Jan
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K. Schoutens (UvA)
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Fractional charge and statistics in quantum Hall
systems
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Colloquium Ehrenfestii in 1998
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9 Dec
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J.L. van Hemmen (TU München)
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Sound Localization in the Barn Owl: Tuning Neuronal
Hardware with Microsecond Precision
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25 Nov
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P.C.E. Stamp (UBC, Vancouver)
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Quantum Irreversibility: The fundamental Mechanisms of
Decoherence
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4 Nov
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W. Ketterle (MIT)
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Keeping the focus on Bose-Einstein condensates
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27 May
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G. Veneziano (CERN, Geneva)
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String Cosmology and the Beginning-of-Time Myth
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13 May
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S. Sachdev (Yale)
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Dynamics near quantum phase transitions: a perspective
on correlated electron systems
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6 May
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E. Otten (Mainz)
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Measurement of the form factors of the neutron and the
human lung with polarized He-3
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22 Apr
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F. Wilczek (IAS, Princeton/Leiden)
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Getting Its from Bits: Modern Pythagorism
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8 Apr
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S. Leibler (Princeton/EMBL, Heidelberg)
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On collective phenomena in the cell
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1 Apr
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V. Icke (Leiden/Amsterdam)
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Death Becomes Them (the end of Sun-like stars)
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18 Mar
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B. Barbara (Neel lab., Grenoble)
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Quantum and classical aspects of magnetisation
reversal in nano-particles
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4 Mar
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J.P. Toennies (Goettingen)
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How many 4He atoms are needed to make a
superfluid?
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11 Feb
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H. Stoof (Utrecht)
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The physics of Bose-Einstein condensates
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28 Jan
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G. Ahlers (UCSB/Bayreuth)
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Experiments on spatio-temporal complexity
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14 Jan
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E. Verlinde (Utrecht)
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From quantum fields to gravity and strings
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Colloquium Ehrenfestii in 1997
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10 Dec
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J.G. van Ingen Schenau (VU, Amsterdam)
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The physics of klapskating
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26 Nov
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A. Goldbeter (ULB, Brussel)
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Theoretical study of oscillations and waves in
intercellular communication
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12 Nov
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E. Salje (Cambridge)
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Tweed and stripes - how solids relax
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22 Oct
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Th. Giamarchi (Orsay)
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Bragg and Moving glasses: a theory for disordered
vortex lattices
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8 Oct
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Ph. Grangier (Inst.d'Optique, Orsay)
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Quantum non-demolition measurement
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24 Sep
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L.R.M. Maas (NIOZ, Texel)
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Surprising behaviour of waves in stratified fluids
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25 Jun
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R.A. Mathies (Berkeley)
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A coherent picture of visual photochemistry
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4 Jun
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B.L. Altshuler (Princeton)
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Spectroscopy of quantum dots: exact quantum states and
Landau quasiparticles
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28 May
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C.M. Marcus (Stanford)
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Quantum chaos in quantum dots
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7 May
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T.W.B. Kibble (Imperial College, London)
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Testing cosmological defect formation in the
laboratory
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23 Apr
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B.I. Halperin (Harvard/Leiden)
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The quantum Hall effects: quantized and
unquantized
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16 Apr
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D. Bensimon (ENS, Paris)
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Manipulation and elastic properties of DNA
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2 Apr
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R.C. Richardson (Cornell)
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The remarkable properties of superfluid 3He
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5 Mar
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J.C. Maan (Nijmegen)
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Composite fermions; a new way of looking at the "old"
fractional quantum Hall effect
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12 Feb
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J. Fröhlich (ETH, Zürich)
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Special Features of Condensed Matter Physics in one
and two dimensions
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5 Feb
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D.P. DiVincenzo (IBM, Yorktown Heights)
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Quantum computation
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Colloquium Ehrenfestii in 1996
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4 Dec
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B.F. Schutz (MPI-Potsdam)
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Gravitational waves from black holes
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20 Nov
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S. Kivelson (UCLA)
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Pairing without condensation in high temperature
superconductors
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6 Nov
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A. Zeilinger (Innsbruck)
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Experiment, entanglement and the foundations of
quantum physics
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30 Oct
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M. Devoret (Saclay)
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Do resistors make shot noise?
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23 Oct
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Y. Imry (Weizmann/Leiden)
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Electron interaction effects in quantum dots
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25 Sep
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N.J. van Druten (Leiden)
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Bose-Einstein condensation: Atomic identity crisis
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4 Sep
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T. Bohr (NBI, Copenhagen)
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Another kind of turbulence
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1 May
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R. Packard (Berkeley)
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The role of the a.c. Josephson equation in superfluid
Helium
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17 Apr
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T. Jacobson (Maryland/Utrecht)
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Black holes and the transplanckian puzzle
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20 Mar
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H. de Wijn (Utrecht)
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Monochromatic phonons
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6 Mar
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E. Brezin (ENS, Paris)
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Why did we need statistical mechanics to understand
quantum field theory?
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28 Feb
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D. Montgomery (Dartmouth/Eindhoven)
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Turbulence and entropy
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21 Feb
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R.E. Goldstein (Princeton)
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The geometry of nonlinear dynamics from Turing
patterns to superconductors
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14 Feb
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V. Gribov (Landau Inst./Budapest/Bonn)
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Physics of quark confinement
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31 Jan
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H.J. Hilhorst (Orsay/Leiden)
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Spin glass theory in low dimensions
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17 Jan
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M. Dogterom (AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill)
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Physical aspects of microtubule growth and mitotic
spindle formation
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Colloquium Ehrenfestii in 1995
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13 Dec
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A. Weis (MPI, Garching)
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Atoms in Helium crystals: ".... and what if time would
go backwards?"
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29 Nov
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J. Engelen (NIKHEF)
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Electron-proton scattering at high energy and the
re-appearance of the Pomeron
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15 Nov
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W. Schleich (Ulm, Duitsland)
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Quantum phase
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1 Nov
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M. Nauenberg (Santa Cruz/UvA)
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Discovery of the laws of orbital motion: Newton,
Huygens and Hooke; Solution of a 300 year old puzzle
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4 Oct
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R. Snieder (Utrecht)
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Imaging the interior of the earth
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13 Sep
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F. Haake (Essen)
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From superfluorescent pulses to a superradiant
laser
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7 Jun
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V. J. Emery (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
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Collective charge transport in high temperature
superconductors
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17 May
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B.L. Altshuler (NEC/MIT)
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Universalities: From Anderson Localization to Quantum
Chaos
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19 Apr
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L. Faddeev (St. Petersburg/Utrecht)
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Quantization, what is it?
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22 Mar
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C. van Haesendonck (Leuven/UvA)
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Nanoelectronics
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8 Mar
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H. Salemink (IBM-Zürich)
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Atomic-scale investigations on semiconductor
nanostructures: Composition and Doping
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1 Mar
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N.D. Mermin (Cornell/Leiden)
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Reinventing Crystallography: The symmetry of aperiodic
crystals
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22 Feb
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N.J. Lopes Cardozo (FOM, Rijnhuizen)
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Filamentation of hot plasma in a magnetic field
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15 Feb
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J. Blatter (ETH-Zürich)
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Vortices in high temperature superconductors
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25 Jan
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M. Veltman (Ann Arbor/Nikhef-H)
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Do black holes exist?
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Colloquium Ehrenfestii in 1994
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14 Dec
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G. Aeppli (AT&TBell Labs, Murray Hill)
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From magnets to superconductors with hot and cold
neutrons
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30 Nov
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W. van de Water (TU-Eindhoven)
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Spatio-temporal chaos
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16 Nov
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G. Björk (Royal Inst. of Tech., Kista, Zweden)
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The physics of semiconductor microlasers
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2 Nov
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F.Y. Wu (North Eastern Univ., Boston/UvA, Amsterdam)
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Knot theory and statistical mechanics
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19 Oct
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J.-M. Lévy-Leblond (Nice)
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Quantum effects at large (how to build a big world out
of small constants)
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12 Oct
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M. Spiro (DAPNIA, Saclay)
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Recent results from the EROS experiment on the search
for dark matter (MACHO's)
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21 Sep
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R. Dijkgraaf (UvA, Amsterdam)
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The unreasonable effectiveness of physics in modern
mathematics
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7 Sep
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B. Poelsema (Universiteit Twente)
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Manipulation of layer-by-layer growth in metal
epitaxy
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1 Jun
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G. Hadziioannou (Groningen)
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Computational devices from soft materials. Is that
possible?!
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11 May
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H. Meyer (Duke, North Carolina)
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Equilibration near the liquid-vapor critical point:
relevance to microgravity experiments
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27 Apr
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C. Caroli (Paris VII)
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Solid friction as a nonlinear physics problem:
stick-slip and creep
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20 Apr
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J.R. Dorfman (Maryland/Utrecht)
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Long range correlations in fluids: theory and
experiment
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30 Mar
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I.K. Yanson (Kharkov, Ukraine/Leiden)
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Electrons passing through a point contact in a
magnetic field
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16 Mar
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W.E. Moerner (IBM research, San José/ETH,
Zürich)
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Spectroscopy of individual molecules in solids
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23 Feb
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D. Frenkel (AMOLF, Amsterdam)
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Solids that boil, liquids that don't
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9 Feb
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J.J. Koenderink (Medische Fysica, Utrecht)
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Pictorial relief
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26 Jan
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J. Smit (UvA, Amsterdam)
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How effective is the Standard Model?
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12 Jan
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J. Kaastra (Ruimteonderzoek, Leiden)
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Massive binary black holes in galactic nuclei
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Colloquium Ehrenfestii in 1993
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8 Dec
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J. van Ruitenbeek (Leiden)
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Building electrical contacts atom-by-atom
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1 Dec
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M. Lüscher (Desy, Hamburg)
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Random numbers and deterministic chaos
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17 Nov
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S. Balibar (ENS, Parijs)
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Cavitation in an ultra pure liquid
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3 Nov
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S. Keiding (Odense University, Denemarken)
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Teraherz electronics and far-infrared optics
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27 Oct
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M.E. Fisher (Maryland, USA/Leiden)
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The Saga of Coulombic Criticality: Debye-Hückel,
Bjerrum, and Beyond
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6 Oct
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J. Frenken (AMOLF, Amsterdam)
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Surface dynamics and phase transitions studied with
ion scattering and high-speed high-temperature STM
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29 Sep
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P. Kelly (Philips, Eindhoven)
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Parameter-free calculations of the properties of
materials (Bumble-bees which DO fly)
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15 Sep
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G. 't Hooft (Utrecht)
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Black Holes in Elementary Particle Physics
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The colloquium was initiated by Paul Ehrenfest, most likely immediately or
soon after he came to Leiden (1912), following the example of Boltzmann's
colloquium in Vienna. The colloquium was held on Wednesday evenings, in any
case from 1926 as people can recollect, but maybe from the beginning.
In the sixties it has been tried to shift the colloquium to the daytime,
but the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.
In the twenties Ehrenfest started to ask the most important speakers at the
colloquium to put their signature
on the wall. This was in the old building (corner Zonneveldstraat -
Langebrug) where theoretical physics was housed and where the mathematics
lectures were held. The building was also called "Leeskamer Bosscha", after
the mathematics and physics library there. (In addition Ehrenfest would ask
those that stayed at his home to sign the white wall in the guest room of his
house, at Witte Rozenstraat 57; also the wifes would sign this wall, and they
would sign every time they would come, not only once as in the colloquium room.
This wall is [probably] still preserved.) After the war, also other important
visiting scientists (in particular mathematicians) that gave a talk in the
colloquium room, but did not speak at the colloqium Ehrenfestii, would sign
the wall.
The old building was taken down around 1962, to make room for the new wing
of the Kamerlingh-Onnes / Instituut-Lorentz complex. Under the guidance of
the university archeologists the piece of wall with the signatures was sawn
out and stored at the State museum of Antiquities in Leiden, after which it
was cemented back into the wall of the new colloquium room. While building
the new complex, the Instituut-Lorentz was housed in a wooden barrack on the
lawn in front of the Kamerlingh-Onnes laboratory. The signatures of that
period were put on the wood which may have been saved but was not incorporated
in the new wall (a photograph of the corresponding list of signatures of
Lorentz-professors was [and still is] incorporated in the wall).
In the days of Ehrenfest, the colloquium was very renowned. Ehrenfest was
famous for the way he led the colloquium. He tolerated no obscurity what
so ever, asked questions that coached the speakers in a better presentation
and summarised the talk afterwards so well (as people said) that some speakers
only then understood what the essence was of what they talked about. Ehrenfest
encouraged students to ask questions and denied the existence of "stupid"
questions. Students that skipped a colloquium could expect a reprimand.
After Ehrenfest died in 1933, H.A. Kramers took over. In his time the
colloquium, including discussions, often lasted until 10 pm. It is likely that
Kramers was the one who introduced the name colloquium Ehrenfestii (in the
beginning spelled incorrectly as Ehrenfesti). After Kramers died in 1952,
S.R. de Groot led the colloquium (and institutionalised the Instituut-Lorentz
for Theoretical Physics), until he left in 1964 to Amsterdam.
More on the history can be found in an
