Five inspiring days at the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting 2024
“The personal exchange with so many laureates and exceptional young scientists will leave its mark on my mind. Their passion was contagious.” That is the verdict of Marie Curie Fellow Christian Schäfer on the annual Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting, which left him with lots of impressions – and deeply inspired.
In early July, 37 Nobel Laureates and 650 young scientists from all over the world gathered in Lindau, southern Germany. This year’s meeting majored on physics. A perfect opportunity for Christian, until recently a researcher in the MPSD’s Theory group and now a postdoc at Chalmers University in Sweden, to participate. Due to the pandemic, he had already joined two meetings remotely in previous years, but this summer he finally got to be there in person. A unique opportunity to meet some of the world’s top scientists, he says:
“A personal highlight was to meet Professor Serge Haroche again in person, as you can see from the size of the grin on my face. After receiving the Nobel Prize in 2012, he presented his work in Berlin, inspiring me as a young and enthusiastic physicist. More than a decade of studies and fascinating research have passed since this moment and it feels almost absurd how fast this time has gone by.”
Christian also met Donna Strickland, David J. Wineland, and Saul Perlmutter. “Donna Strickland was especially fun to talk to, I had a great time during dinner next to her,” he recalls.
He had travelled to Lindau hoping to find out more about the Nobel Laureates – their perspectives on science in general and what they are “built” of. The answer to that question: “Mostly interest, determination, and a good chunk of luck,” he concludes. “It was remarkable how grounded and fun the laureates have been, many conveying the impression that they would not hesitate a second to exchange their Nobel Prize for the opportunity of a few more years of research.”
Now that he is back home, Christian feels that his own research work can only benefit from those intense days in Lindau: “The exchanges have strengthened my motivation to just keep trying out that next idea. If there is something a scientist has no limitations of, then its ideas.”
