Abbreviation | E.U.S.S. |
---|---|
Formation | 19 March 1884 |
Purpose | Education, discussion, debate, political agitation, advocacy |
Affiliations | Edinburgh University Students' Association |
Website | edunisocialists |
Formerly called | Edinburgh University Reform Society |
Edinburgh University Socialist Society is a society at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland which advocates a "more just and equal society, based on democratic control of the economy". [1]
The Society has existed in various forms since it was initially founded in 1884, stating in its manifesto: "Utopia now: we can bring it about. The power is ours if we have the will". [2] One of the key founders of the society was Léo Meillet, who had been active in the Paris Commune as a member of the "Committee for Public Safety". [3] It is believed to have been Britain's first university socialist society. [4]
The Society played a key role in the early development of the socialist movement in Scotland, including hosting the first "indoor preaching of Modern Socialism" in Edinburgh on 19 March 1884, with William Morris as the main speaker. The talk was titled "Useful Labour versus Useless Toil", The Scotsman reported a "good attendance, a considerable proportion of those present being ladies". [5] [6] [7] Later that year the society also hosted a lecture by the influential positivist, Edward Spencer Beesly. [8]
In 1885, following the realisation of the stigma associated with 'socialism', the Society briefly changed its name to Edinburgh University Reform Society. [9]
Russian Nobel Prize–winning physicist and revolutionary Igor Tamm was active in the society as a student in 1913. [10]
Experimental zoologist and critic of eugenics, Lancelot Hogben played an active role in the Society in the early 1920s. [11]
Poet J. K. Annand was the Society's Secretary during his time at the university in the late 1920s. [12]
In the 1930s members included David Pitt, who went on to become a civil rights activist and Britain's longest serving black parliamentarian; Robert McIntyre, who went on to be Leader and then President of the Scottish National Party; and Jessie Kocmanová, who went on to become a leading scholar on William Morris. [13] [14]
In 1949 the society host a performance by singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. [15] Later that year Max Born (pioneer of quantum physics and later winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics) used a meeting of the society to express his opinions on atomic weapons and foreign policy. [16]
Aage Niels Bohr was a Danish nuclear physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 with Ben Roy Mottelson and James Rainwater "for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection". Starting from Rainwater's concept of an irregular-shaped liquid drop model of the nucleus, Bohr and Mottelson developed a detailed theory that was in close agreement with experiments.
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867). Apart from his work in his homeland, he spent a substantial amount of his career abroad, in both Canada and the United Kingdom.
Pierre Curie was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel". With their win, the Curies became the first ever married couple to win the Nobel Prize, launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes.
Max Born was a German physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 1930s. Born won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially in the statistical interpretation of the wave function".
Sir Joseph John Thomson was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered.
Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and mentored many students for the new era of theoretical physics. He served as doctoral supervisor for many Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry.
Sir William Lawrence Bragg, was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer (1912) of Bragg's law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure. He was joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915, "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays"; an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography.
Peter Ware Higgs is a British theoretical physicist, Emeritus Professor in the University of Edinburgh, and Nobel Prize laureate for his work on the mass of subatomic particles.
Sir William Henry Bragg was an English physicist, chemist, mathematician, and active sportsman who uniquely shared a Nobel Prize with his son Lawrence Bragg – the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics: "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays". The mineral Braggite is named after him and his son. He was knighted in 1920.
Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen was a German nuclear physicist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, known as the Uranium Club, where he contributed to the separation of uranium isotopes. After the war, Jensen was a professor at the University of Heidelberg. He was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Institute for Advanced Study, University of California, Berkeley, Indiana University, and the California Institute of Technology.
Leo James Rainwater was an American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei.
Sir Nevill Francis Mott was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors. The award was shared with Philip W. Anderson and J. H. Van Vleck. The three had conducted loosely related research. Mott and Anderson clarified the reasons why magnetic or amorphous materials can sometimes be metallic and sometimes insulating.
John William Mackail was a Scottish academic of Oxford University and reformer of the British education system.
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The University of Edinburgh is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1582 and officially opened in 1583, it is one of Scotland's four ancient universities and the sixth-oldest university in continuous operation in the English-speaking world. The university played an important role in Edinburgh becoming a chief intellectual centre during the Scottish Enlightenment and contributed to the city being nicknamed the "Athens of the North." Edinburgh is ranked among the top universities in the United Kingdom and the world.
David Jeffrey Wineland is an American Nobel-laureate physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physics laboratory. His work has included advances in optics, specifically laser-cooling trapped ions and using ions for quantum-computing operations. He was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Serge Haroche, for "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems".
Jessie Newbery was a Scottish artist and embroiderer. She was one of the artists known as the Glasgow Girls. Newbery also created the Department of Embroidery at the Glasgow School of Art where she was able to establish needlework as a form of unique artistic design. She married the director of the Glasgow School of Art, Francis Newbery, in 1889.
William Peddie FRSE LLD was a Scottish physicist and applied mathematician, known for his research on colour vision and molecular magnetism.
Jessie Cunningham Methven was a Scottish campaigner for women's suffrage. She was honorary secretary of the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage from the mid 1890s until 1906. She subsequently joined the more militant Women's Social and Political Union and described herself as an "independent socialist".
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