Spanish Royal Physics Society
[6] The founding session of the original RSEFQ took place on 23 January 1903,[7] at the dean's offices of the Universidad Central at Calle Ancha de San Bernardo, in Madrid.
The certificate of incorporation undersigned by José Echegaray reads: "...Mr. Carracido[8] stated the aim of the meeting, which was to reach an agreement for the incorporation of the Spanish Society of Physics and Chemistry destined to conducting studies and publishing the results thereof in these disciplines by individuals adhering to this idea."
As Carracido recalled in 1909 at the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical, and Natural Sciences (Real Academia de Ciencias, RAC), "In the year 1903, the RSEFQ was founded, shortly after which the publication of our journal was resumed.
From the 1920s, thanks to scholarships awarded by the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios [es],[11] a large number of Spanish physicists and chemists had travelled abroad and renowned scientists had visited Spain, including Urbain, Fourneau, Fabry, Perrin, Fajans, Sabatier, Ostwald, Curie, Einstein, Scherrer, Weiss, Sommerfeld, and many others.
Some society scientists (Cajal, Cabrera, Hauser, Rodríguez, Mourelo, Torres Quevedo, Casares, Carracido, Moles, etc.)
were invited as conference speakers; their works were translated, and they were honoured at teaching and scientific institutions in Europe and America.
For example, the "father of Spanish physics", the Lanzarotean Blas Cabrera[13] (who was president of the RSEFQ in 1916), took part at the Solvay Conferences of 1930 and 1933.
[14] When the First World War broke out in 1914, the society's activity suffered little impact at first, despite foreign journals becoming harder to come by and the increasing difficulties faced to obtain products and apparatus from abroad.
The repercussions of the war, however, were felt after its conclusion in 1918, although we cannot overlook the hypothesis that such effects may have been a consequence of the isolation in which Spain remained during that period.
The inauguration was led by Niceto Alcalá Zamora, President of the Republic, and Salvador de Madariaga, Minister of Public Instruction.
As this brief outline of the beginnings of the Royal Spanish Society of Physics and Chemistry will suggest, since its foundation this institution has shown a firm interest in placing Spain within the international scientific panorama.
The academic colours for the six classical faculties at that time ('white for Theology, garnet red for Law, golden yellow for Medicine, purple for Pharmacy, sky blue for Philosophy and Arts, and turquoise blue for Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences') were established in the Regulations for the Universities of the Kingdom approved on 22 May 1859, under Queen Isabel II, when the Moyano Act was developed.
