Lindau is shining. The town on Lake Constance nestles against a brilliant expanse of silk-blue sky washed clean by the summer night’s rain. At midday the cafés along the lakeside promenade are buzzing with a multitude of voices, overflowing with the happiness of the many tourists who are warming themselves in the gentle rays of the early summer sunshine. A departing ferry boat sounds its siren, and among the street vendors an artist proffers pictures of Albert Einstein which earn him some friendly smiles. Once again – the 56th time in fact – Lindau is a global focal point of science and research. For a whole week the town is hosting 23 Nobel Prize winners – along with 530 highly gifted up-and-coming scientists from 53 countries who are eager to learn from the laureates.

“It’s fantastic here,” enthuses Nina Vlachy during the coffee break in the foyer of the Inselhalle. “I’m meeting up with the luminaries in my field and discovering that they are people I can talk with, without feeling intimidated.” She is a chemist from Slovenia and – like all of the young participants – she has undergone a series of selection processes after being nominated as a candidate by her university in Ljubljana on account of her outstanding achievements. More than 11,000 candidates throughout the world took part in this selection procedure. Bettina Herbig from Würzburg adds, “It’s not just about meeting the Nobel Prize winners. I’ve never experienced such an intense exchange of ideas with researchers from the same age group and from so many places around the globe.”

Chemistry is the main talking point of this year’s meeting in Lindau. This discipline offers “the most important basis for a genuine understanding of the natural sciences”, explains Professor Richard Ernst from the ETH Zürich during his lecture, whilst his subtle grin betrays him as an essential humanist with a healthy level of detachment. With his profound humour, the winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry fascinates his audience more than any other speaker during the morning session. Without his brilliant research during the 1960s and 1970s there would be no magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and no way of determining the three-dimensional structure of dynamic molecules. MRI provides a precise insight into matter – Richard Ernst refined its sensitivity and resolution intensity to produce the most important analysis technique in chemistry. But Ernst doesn’t spend too long talking about his own work here in Lindau. He prefers to place it in a historical perspective ranging from the almost 200-year-old brilliant mathematical achievement of the Fourier transform to the current research questions being addressed by his students. In this way he reveals a panorama that commits his listeners to the tradition of a branch of discipline without which chemists would have to grope their way through the world of molecules in semi-blindness. “Optimism is our duty,” says Ernst, quoting the philosopher Popper. “We are all mutually responsible for what is to come.”

And the congress programme illustrates just how seriously the social dimension of science is being taken at the Lindau meeting with its round-table discussion dedicated to energy and global warming. “This has very little to do with my own specific area of research, as is the case with most of the other lectures too,” says 24-year-old Dmitry Zubenko from Novosibirsk, “but that’s precisely why the congress is so important to me. It opens up entirely new horizons.” All of the participants experience this broadening of perspectives during the morning sessions of the congress week. One lecture follows another calling for outstanding levels of mental agility. In the afternoons the new horizons are surveyed and consolidated. The participants join in seminars with a laureate of their choice and discuss science, politics or more personal things with them in more intimate circles. “The organization exceeds all my expectations,” says the young biochemist Thomas Aberle. “You’re often engrossed in your everyday routine without knowing what it’s all for – but being here reminds you of the bigger picture.”

The first congress in Lindau was originally inspired by memories of better days, when Germany was a leading representative of medical progress with researchers such as Robert Koch, Paul Ehrlich or Emil von Behring, and also involved the desire to link up with these times. After all, Nazi Germany had driven out and exiled its best scientists, so that the country emerged from World War II isolated and cut off from the latest knowledge and discoveries. In this situation two doctors from Lindau, Gustav Parade and Franz Karl Hein, suggested holding a conference with Nobel Prize winners in order to liberate German medicine from its isolation. And they turned to the right man with their idea: Count Lennart Bernadotte, whose great-grandfather had presented the very first Nobel Prize in Stockholm in 1901. In 1932, Bernadotte turned down his possible succession to the Swedish throne for reasons of the heart, and withdrew to the island of Murnau on Lake Constance that he had inherited from his grandmother, Victoria von Baden. Count Bernadotte thought the two physicians’ idea was marvellous – and he activated his direct links with Stockholm to turn the plan into reality. The count, and honorary patron, opened the first “European Congress of Nobel Laureates in Medicine” in Lindau on 11 June 1951.

The meeting of Nobel Prize winners has taken place every year since then. At first, it was limited to medical science, but later included chemistry and physics with an emphasis on each discipline rotating on a tri-annual basis. Throughout his long life, Count Bernadotte, who died aged 95 in 2004, worked tirelessly in support of the meeting. This noble link between Stockholm and Lindau also led to Professor Roald Hoffmann’s guest appearance. The chemist from the world famous Cornell University is visiting Lindau for the first time this year, despite the fact that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his contribution to “theories concerning the course of chemical reactions” as a young scientist. “They’ve often invited me,” says the 68-year-old laureate, “but I was always afraid that the Nobel Prize winners might simply gather here to promote their own legend.” But Professor Hoffmann adds that his fears proved groundless, “There are some remarkable young people here.” In his opinion, the opportunity of meeting Nobel laureates is more likely to help demystify things, to boost motivation and help people put their plans for life on a realistic footing. He reckons that the more talented a person is, the more difficult it is to make a definite decision to pursue science, simply because they have so many other interests. “Should I become a chemist? Or maybe a musician instead? The question can be of existential significance,” says the laureate knowingly.

“Science can be so demanding that it can become addictive, and it can take over your whole life,” warns Professor Hoffmann. He says that the laureates can help young scientists by making it clear to them that even scientists are still whole human beings with a diversity of interests, and that it’s possible, as in his own case, to combine a career as a chemist with interests in philosophy and poetry, in fact that this inner diversity can actually inspire scientific success. Professor Hoffmann’s lecture on the relationship between science, ethics and language struck a nerve in the audience. “Data alone are mute,” he said. “Research data need language to bring them to life. That’s why scientists should tell stories about their research more often. “Each particular cultural context enriches these stories – and enables both the narrator and the audience to learn from their differences.” “Value the differences” — uniting diversity among peoples is the essence of the aim so admirably realized by the internationality of the Lindau congress.

The international character of the meetings is admittedly not all that old. It was in 1995, when Roman Herzog, the Federal President at that time, visited the meeting. He sensed the international spirit of the times within the walls of the Inselhalle and courageously embraced the opportunity of transforming Lindau into a unique point of encounter between the generations of the global scientific elite. President Herzog then initiated the establishment of the Foundation Lindau Nobel Prizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance, marking the turning point that gave the meeting its new professional, international character backed up by a global network of academies and sponsors. The Foundation’s chairman, Professor Wolfgang Schürer, has also initiated a meeting of Nobel Prize winners in economics, which is taking place for the second time this year. And Countess Sonja Bernadotte, who is President of the Lindau meeting committee, continues the tradition of her deceased husband by holding a closing reception for all of the participants on the island of Mainau.

Lindau is doubtless the most beautiful venue for a gathering of great minds. To the south, the mountains greet you with the brightly shimmering Säntis, its contours etched out in the warmth of the midday sun which streams into the harbour between the Bavarian lion and the lighthouse. Along the harbour promenade, mingling among the many holidaymakers, professors and students are engrossed in conversation. The words of the Federal Minister of Education and Research, Annette Schavan, come as little surprise when she says at the opening of the gathering: “This Meeting is an outstanding business card for Germany as an attractive location for research and education – with great appeal worldwide.”