Press release from the Nobel Prize Museum

Exhibition about time will open in September

1 July 2024 View in Swedish
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This autumn, the Nobel Prize Museum will tackle a major topic in a small exhibition. THEN, NOW, LATER will explore how some Nobel Prize laureates in physics and literature have dealt with the subject of time and have debated its nature. Visitors will also be able to experience a video work in which the artist Marcus Coates follows the movement of a clock, second by second. The exhibition will open on 7 September.

“Throughout history, humans have thought about time and its passage. The nature of time has also captivated the interest of many Nobel Prize laureates. In the exhibition, we will dive into everything from Bob Dylan’s texts to Einstein’s theories and learn more about how to measure a billionth of a billionth of a second,” says Erika Lanner, Director of the Nobel Prize Museum.

Not all discussions resonate throughout history, but the debate that took place on 6 April 1922 between two Nobel Prize laureates did just that. In the exhibition, philosopher Ellen Emilie Henriksen will tell the story of the encounter in Paris between literature laureate Henri Bergson and physics laureate Albert Einstein. Their conflicting views about what time is revealed a gap between the natural sciences and the humanities that has lived on over the years. 

The exhibition will also feature the 24-hour video work Self Portrait as Time. In this work, British artist Marcus Coates blurs the line between himself and the movement of a clock. Texts by literature laureates such as Annie Ernaux, Bob Dylan, Wisława Szymborska and Tomas Tranströmer capture how humans can experience time.

Visitors will also gain an insight into how it is possible to measure and register a really short period of time. One attosecond is a billionth of a billionth of a second. With the help of lab equipment from 2023 physics laureates Pierre Agostini, Anne L’Huillier and Ferenc Krausz, the exhibition will explain their work on creating attosecond pulses of light.

The exhibition THEN, NOW, LATER – a small exhibition about measuring and experiencing time will run from 7 September to 1 December. Parallel with the exhibition on time, the Nobel Prize Museum will continue to display the larger exhibition These Things Changed the World.

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Physics laureate Anne L’Huillier presenting her gift to the Nobel Museum’s collection, an instrument she used in her early research on laser harmonics.  Photo: Anna Svanberg
Nobel Prize Museum

The Nobel Prize shows that ideas can change the world. The courage, creativity and perseverance of the Nobel Prize laureates inspire us and give us hope for the future. Films, in-depth tours, and artefacts tell the stories of the laureates and their contributions “for the greatest benefit to humankind”. Based on the Nobel Prize’s unique combination of fields – natural sciences, literature and peace – we examine the greatest challenges of our time and show how we can respond to them through science, humanism and collaboration. With our exhibitions, school programmes, lectures and conversations, we at the Nobel Prize Museum strive to engage the public in making a better world. Today we are located on Stortorget, the main square in Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s Old Town district. We are planning to create a new home for our public outreach activities at Slussen in central Stockholm.

Contacts
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