Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist Ernest Solvay was born #OTD in 1838.
He is best known for his pioneering work in the chemical industry and for the establishment of the Solvay process for the manufacture of soda ash (sodium carbonate). In 1911, he began a series of important conferences in physics, known as the Solvay Conferences, whose participants included Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Henri Poincaré, and Albert Einstein.
The portrait of participants to the first Solvay Conference in 1911. Ernest Solvay is the third seated from the left. Solvay was not present at the time the photo was taken, so his photo was cut and pasted onto this one for the official release.