The Fifth Solvay International Conference, 1927

If you are a physicist, or work in a Physics-related field, or simply like the stuff, you either cry or get a boner when you look at the picture below (don't ask me where I stand...)

If you, on the other hand, hate Physics or are otherwise not-normal, all you see is a bunch of serious looking guys in tuxedos... and a not-so-fashionable woman. So, you might as well stop reading now.

Taken in Leopold Park in Brussels in October 1927, during the Fifth Solvay International Conference, it depicts the most intelligent group of people ever to grace a photograph. 17 of the 29 attendees were or became Nobel Prize winners!

Who are they? Well, I'm certain that everyone can recognise the guy sitting in the middle of the front row (Albert Einstein, duh). Depending on your relation to science, you might be able to at least guess the identity of the only woman in the picture (Madam Curie, of course). And, while you will most likely not recognise the guy standing in the middle of the back row, you have probably heard of his... cat! Indeed, that is Erwin Schrödinger.

So, shall we meet the rest of the people who have effectively shaped the world as we know it today?

NPP = Nobel Prize in Physics

NPC = Nobel Prize in Chemistry

FRONT ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT

Irving Langmuir (American, 1881-1957, NPC: 1932) 

Max K. E. L. Planck (German, 1858-1947, NPP: 1918) 

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (Polish/French, 1867-1934, NPP: 1903, NPC: 1911)

Hendrik A. Lorentz (Dutch, 1853-1928, NPP: 1902) 

Albert Einstein (German, 1879-1955, NPP: 1921)

Paul Langevin (French, 1872-1946)

Charles-Eugène Guye (Swiss, 1866-1942)

Charles T. R. Wilson (Scottish, 1869-1959, NPP: 1927)

Owen W. Richardson (English, 1879-1959, NPP: 1928)

MIDDLE ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT

Peter J. W. Debye (Dutch/American, 1884-1966, NPC: 1936)

Martin H. C. Knudsen (Danish, 1871-1949)

William L. Bragg (British, 1890-1971, NPP: 1915)

Hendrik A. Kramers (Dutch, 1894-1952)

Paul A. M. Dirac (English, 1902-1984, NPP: 1933)

Arthur H. Compton (American, 1892-1962, NPP: 1927)

Louis V. P. R. de Broglie (French, 1892-1987, NPP: 1929)

Max Born (German, 1882-1970, NPP: 1954)

Niels Bohr (Danish, 1885-1962, NPP: 1922)

BACK ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT

Auguste A. Piccard (Swiss, 1884-1962)

Émile Henriot (French, 1885-1961)

Paul Ehrenfest (Austrian/Dutch, 1880-1933)

Édouard Herzen (Belgian, 1877-1936)

Théophile E. de Donder (Belgian, 1872-1957)

Erwin R. J. A. Schrödinger (Austrian, 1887-1961, NPP: 1933)

Jules-Émile Verschaffelt (Belgian, 1870-1955)

Wolfgang E. Pauli (Austrian, 1900-1958, NPP: 1945)

Werner K. Heisenberg (German, 1901-1976, NPP: 1932)

Ralph H. Fowler (English, 1889-1944)

Léon N. Brillouin (French, 1889-1969)

OK, so, you've read the names, but you still have no idea who they are. Let's have a quick look at a selected few:  

Planck (in my humble view, a titan among giants) was the one who conceived the idea of quantums ("the most revolutionary idea which ever has shaken physics" according to Max Born) paving the way for the creation of Quantum Mechanics (QM).  

Dirac (in my humble view, another titan among giants) (i) introduced his eponymous equation which allows for the accurate description of the behaviour of all elementary matter particles, (ii) introduced the nowadays globally used formalism of QM and (iii) predicted the existence of anti-matter.  

Bohr (whose hydrogen atom model was the first QM model), Kramers, Born (whose probabilistic interpretation of Schrödinger's  wave function ended determinism in physics),  Pauli (whose Exclusion Principle explains the periodic table of elements), Heisenberg (whose Uncertainty Principle lies at the core of QM), de Broglie (who introduced the wave-particle duality) and Schrödinger (whose wave-function equation is one of the most fundamental in QM), along with Dirac developed the theory of Quantum Mechanics.  

Lorentz came up with the eponymous transformations, a key ingredient in Einstein's Special Relativity Theory.

Curie, was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, one of only four individuals to have won more than one NP and one of only two individuals to have won more than one NP in different fields. She died of radiation poisoning, a result of her work.

TRIVIA:

Einstein's Nobel Prize was for the explanation of the Photoelectric Effect. He never received a Nobel for his Relativity Theories.

Piccard was the inspiration for the character of Professeur Tryphon Tournesol in the comic book series "The Adventures of Tintin" by Belgian cartoonist Hergé.