History of the Lublin Branch

The Lublin Branch of the Polish Physical Society was founded in 1947. The first Chairman of the Board was elected on On November 21, 1947, prof. Dr. Stanislaw Ziemecki. Initially, the Branch had a dozen or so members and organized meetings during which papers were presented and scientific discussions were held. The most active ones include Włodzimierz Żuk, Danuta Stachórska, Stanisław Ziemecki, Stefan Wieluński, Włodzimierz Urbański, Mieczysław Subotowicz, Wacław Staszewski, Armin Teske, Janusz Skierczyński and J. Meldizon. The Department's popularizing activity consisted in organizing physics lectures for school workers and teachers.

In the mid-1950s, the number of OL PPS members increased to 27, including members from the Białystok district. In 1953, the Branch organized the first Physics Shows, attended by over 1,260 people. The shows organized systematically until now enjoy unflagging interest among students and teachers. They gather several thousand spectators every year.

The Lublin Branch of PPS organized three Congresses of Polish Physicists. On September 12-17, 1967, the 20th Congress was held, attended by about 700 people, including several guests from Hungary and the USSR. During the Congress, there were 36 plenary sessions, a session dedicated to the memory of Marian Smoluchowski on the 50th anniversary of his death and an exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Maria Curie-Skłodowska. The 27th Congress of Polish Physicists took place on September 21-25, 1981. During the plenary sessions, lectures were given, among others by V.F. Weisskopf, K. Parliński, J. Czerwonko, A. Kujawski, H. Szymczak. There were poster and discussion sessions. About 500 people participated in the Congress. On September 4-9, 2011, the XLI Congress of Polish Physicists took place in Lublin, organized by the Lublin Branch of the Polish Physical Society and the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in cooperation with the Lublin University of Technology and the Institute of Agrophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The Congress was attended by 355 people (participants, lecturers and guests). The foreign guests of the Congress were representatives of ten organizations associating physicists from Europe, the USA, China and Japan, including the presidents of physical societies from Belarus, Japan and Ukraine and the vice-president of the European Physical Society. As the first in the history of the Lublin center, the main prize of Polish physicists - the Marian Smoluchowski Medal - was awarded to prof. dr hab. Krzysztof Pomorski in recognition of outstanding achievements in the field of the theory of nuclear dynamics. The laureate gave a lecture entitled "On the Physics of Almost Everything one hundred years after the discovery of the atomic nucleus".

During many years of activity, the Lublin Branch of PPS was visited and delivered by famous Polish physicists, including Sz. Szczeniowski, J. Pniewski, J. Rayski, L. Natanson, A. Hrynkiewicz, J. Żylicz, A. Strzałkowski, W. Mościcki, W. Zonn, J. Auleytner, R.S. Ingarden, A. Sobiczewski, B. Średniawa, L. Sosnowski. Among the foreign guests, the following should be mentioned: G.N. Florow, J. Oganesian and B.S. Dżelepov (Dubna), S. Szalay (Debrecen), A.K. Lavruchina (Moscow), O. Stirand (Praha), J. Krumlinde (Lund), J. Kistemaker (Amsterdam), H. Roy Krouse (Calgary), K. Dietrich (Munich) .

From the beginning of its existence, the Lublin Branch of PPS was headed by 12 chairmen. Currently, the Lublin Branch of PPS has 150 members.