In the
Age of Enlightenment, people devoted themselves to the then flourishing natural sciences, i.e., in addition to physics, also mathematics, technology, agriculture, medicine, pharmacy, and especially natural history (which included descriptive natural sciences such as zoology, botany, meteorology, geology, geography, and astronomy). Zurich citizens tended to expand and complete their academic studies at foreign universities. The local university, the
Carolinum at the
Grossmünster, enjoyed great prestige for philology, philosophy, and theology—and increasingly also for the full professorship (then canon) of physics and mathematics established in 1558. But the academics who returned home lacked "collaborative scientific work, mutual stimulation, and the exchange of ideas." Thus, they came across " to doctor and master of the canon Johannes Gessner, whose experience and knowledge could be helpful in the implementation of such a project. […] This proposal was soon followed by a private conversation in which Gessner was encouraged […] to hold public lectures on physics accompanied by experiments here in Zurich, as in England […].” Thus, on August 10, 1746, the Natural Science Society of Zurich (NGZH) was founded and took on tasks otherwise reserved for academies and universities. It maintained a botanical garden and an observatory. It also built extensive collections of scientific instruments and a comprehensive library. It kept records of the daily weather and was responsible for accurate timekeeping in Zurich. From 1757 to 1840, the NGZH was the main tenant of the premises in the Zunfthaus zur Meisen, which housed the meeting room, a large part of the collection, an astronomical observatory, and a chemical laboratory. Great figures such as
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1775) and
Alessandro Volta (1777) attended meetings here. Due to the growing number of members, the rooms of the guild rooms (Meisen, Rüden, Zimmerleuten, Schmidstube) became increasingly unsuitable for meetings, so that in 1943 the society finally moved entirely into the large lecture halls of the
ETH Zurich, which had since been founded. At its meetings, experiments were also conducted, following the example of other scientific societies, such as the
Royal Society. The society's activities and collections benefited the science faculties of the
University of Zurich, founded in 1833, and the ETH Zurich (ETH) opened in 1855, the
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA), founded in 1880, and the
Zentralbibliothek Zürich (ZBZ), founded in 1916. == Activities ==