In 1940, Denmark was occupied. In the laboratory of Niels Bohr are the Nobel medals of Max von Laue and James Franck. Their engraved names could make them dangerously recognizable.
The chemist George de Hevesy chooses a hiding place that does not look like a hiding place: it dissolves gold. Medals cease to exist as identifiable objects. What remains is a chemical solution, much less evocative than a disk with a name and a profile.
After the war, the gold was recovered and new medals were made. The story is not that of treasures destroyed to escape a seizure. They changed their state and then found a form. The objects had disappeared; their matter was waiting.
What we know
The medals were remanufactured from the recovered gold; the original discs were not kept intact.
To go to the source
References consulted on September 20, 2026. Linked pages may be in another language.
Signaler une erreur ou apporter une précision
