Scandinavian_Scientist_Conference

Scandinavian Scientist Conference

Scandinavian Scientist Conference

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See also: Nordic student meeting

The Scandinavian Scientist Conferences (Nordiske Naturforskermøde/Nordiska Naturforskarmöte or Naturforskerselskabet/Naturforskarsällskapet, English:Scandinavian Association of Naturalists) was a series of meetings 1839–1936 for scientists and physicists from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, later also Finland and Iceland, in the era Scandinavism.

The banquet at the 1847 meeting, held in Roskilde. The president of the meeting Hans Christian Ørsted is speaking. Christopher Hansteen, who presided the 1844 meeting in Oslo, is standing right in front of the speaker. Half-way standing to the left is Japetus Steenstrup. Wall painting by Erik Henningsen in the aula of the University of Copenhagen.

History

The scientific community in Scandinavia were small and scattered, but collectively they had by the 1830s attained the critical mass for meeting at conferences. The inspiration came from Germany, where the scientists since 1822 had held conferences to improve communication in the fragmented geopolitical landscape. The creation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1831) drew on the same source of inspiration. From the start, the Scandinavian Scientist Conferences became an outlet for important scientific results. However, towards the end of the 19th century, uni-disciplinary conferences and scientific journals became competitors to the Scandinavian conference as vehicle for scientific communication. As the presentations given at the Scandinavian conferences increasingly were summaries of results already published elsewhere, the meetings lost their importance.The early meetings were held every second year, then every third year, and then at increasingly irregular intervals. In the 20th century, only four Scandinavian Scientist Conferences were held, the last in Helsinki 1936.

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Notes

  1. [1]
    H.C. Andersen wrote lyrics for a song celebrating the event, Oresundstid.dk
  2. [2]
    The venue was the new main building of the University of Copenhagen

References

  • Eriksson, Nils (1991) "I andans kraft, på sannings stråt": De skandinaviska naturforskarmötena 1839–1936. Gothenburg studies in the history of science and ideas 12, 512 pp. ISBN 91-7346-233-0
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