Marian Smoluchowski: A story behind one photograph

TL;DR

This paper explores the historical context and significance of a 1904 photograph featuring Marian Smoluchowski and colleagues, highlighting lesser-known graduates and the physicists' activities within the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the photograph's historical background and sheds light on the lives of the graduates and physicists involved in early 20th-century Ukrainian scientific circles.

Findings

Identification of the individuals in the photograph.

Historical insights into physicists' activities in the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

Highlighting the contributions of lesser-known graduates.

Abstract

We discuss the photograph procured from the archives of the V. Stefanyk Lviv National Scientific Library of Ukraine dated by 1904 which shows Marian Smoluchowski together with professors and graduate students of the Philosophy department of the Lviv University. The personalia includes both the professors and the graduates depicted on the photograph with the emphasis on the graduates as being much less known and studied. The photograph originates from the collection of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, therefore a brief historical background on the activities of physicists in this society around that period of time is provided as well.