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Characters in Rutherford's life

Paul Langevin (1872-1946)

It was in Cambridge , in 1897, that Ernest Rutherford met Paul Langevin, who had come to spend a year in the laboratory of Professor JJ Thomson .
They will meet again many times, in Paris , Brussels or elsewhere and will remain friends all their lives.

Paul Langevin à Cambridge 1897.jpg

Pictures:

  • Paul Langevin in Cambridge in 1897. Source: André Langevin family archives

  • Ernest Rutherford, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Albert Einstein and Paul Langevin at the first Solvay Congress, Brussels, 1911. Source: Wikipedia

  • Patrick Blackett, Piotr Kapitza, Paul Langevin, Ernest Rutherford and CTR Wilson, Free School Lane, Cambridge, June 1929. Source: Cambridge University Digital Library

    Paul Langevin entered the École municipale de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris (Municipal School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry of the city of Paris) at the age of 16. There, one of his professor was Pierre Curie.  He continued his studies  at the École Normale Supérieure then at the Faculty of Sciences in Paris. Holder of bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics, he gained the aggregation in physical sciences in 1897 and obtained a scholarship the same year, which allowed him to spend one year at the Cavendish laboratory of J.J. Thomson, in Cambridge.

      He obtained a doctoral thesis in 1902 and then began a career in teaching and research. He first worked at the College de France and then at the École municipale de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris, taking over, from 1905, the position of Pierre Curie.

    Paul Langevin and his wife Jeanne form with the Curies, as well as Henriette and Jean Perrin, Marguerite and Émile Borel and other members of the Parisian academic world, a united, progressive, committed group. They distinguished themselves in particular by defending Alfred Dreyfus or, in another register, by developing innovative ideas on education. Thus, in 1907 and 1908, half a dozen children aged eight to fourteen, including Irène Curie, attended the courses of the Teaching Cooperative created by this group of intellectuals. Chemistry lessons were given by Jean Perrin, physics lessons by Marie Curie, mathematics by Paul Langevin, while Henriette Perrin was responsible for French, and other eminent professors from the College de France or the Sorbonne introduced the new generation to history, English, German, arts...   

 Attending the first Solvay congress, in 1911, Langevin was the rapporteur of this meeting, with Maurice de Broglie. It was during this congress in Brussels that his affair with Marie Curie was revealed. It had lasted for more than a year but ended because of the scandal caused by these revelations... and the odious attitude of Jeanne Langevin, supported by her mother and hordes of far-right journalists eager to tarnish the reputation of Marie Curie (who nevertheless obtained her second Nobel Prize at the end of this same year 1911, when the uproar orchestrated by the French press wasat its peak). Paul Langevin participated in all subsequent Solvay physics congresses and became the chairman of those events from 1930 to 1933.

Blackett Kapitza Langevin Rutherford CTR Wilson Cambridge 1929.jpg

    His scientific work covered the field of magnetism, the study of Brownian motion, the behavior of electrons, concepts developed by Albert Einstein. For example, Langevin introduced in France and defended the theories of relativity.

During the First World War, he also worked on the detection of ultrasonic waves, in partnership with a representative of an allied power, England, namely Ernest Rutherford. Their work, which they would share with the United States, will prefigure the current sonars.

    In 1919, he became a member of the League of Human Rights, continuing his earlier humanist commitments. He became president of this association from 1944 to 1946, the year of his death.

Sources :

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