Louis Néel – Nominations
Hannes Alfvén – Nominations
Hannes Alfvén – Nobel Lecture
Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1970
Plasma Physics, Space Research and the Origin of the Solar System
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Louis Néel – Banquet speech
Louis Néel’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1970 (in French)
Sire, Altesses Royales, Mesdames, Messieurs,
Je suis heureux d’avoir ici l’occasion de remercier l’Académie Royale des Sciences de Suède pour la distinction qui ma été accordée et qui, par mon intermédiaire, honore la Physique française et en particulier l’Ecole française de Magnétisme : Pierre Curie qui le premier fit un classement précis des substances magnétiques, Paul Langevin auquel on doit la théorie du para et du diamagnétisme, Pierre Weiss et sa théorie du ferromagnétisme.
Seules restaient incomprises les propriétés de la plus ancienne des substances magnétiques connues : la magnétite ou pierre d’aimant qui attiré l’attention des curieux depuis quatre mille ans. J’ai eu la chance de combler cette lacune et d’expliquer ces propriétés, avec la notion de ferromagnétisme.
Mais j’avais été précédé dans cette voie, au XIIème siècle, par Pierre de Maricourt, auteur en 1269 du premier traité sérieux sur les aimants. Après avoir lu son œuvre, on peut faire trois remarques.
D’abord qu’en matière scientifique, on a souvent des prédécesseurs beaucoup plus anciens qu’on ne le pense a priori.
En second lieu que la liaison Université-Industrie dont on parle becaucoup aujourd’hui est en réalité très ancienne puisque la lettre de Pierre de Maricourt se préoccupait principalement des applications du magnétisme aux boussoles et aux compas de marine, pour la navigation.
En dernier lieu, je remarquerai que Pierre de Maricourt se faisait appeler aussi Peter Peregrinus ou Pierre le Pélerin, ce qui pouvait faire allusion à une croisade en terre sainte, mais ce qui me rappelle aussi qu’au Moyen Age les savants étaient de grands voyageurs et passaient facilement d’une université européenne à une autre.
Puisse l’exemple de cette ancienne coopération européenne, facilitée de nos jours par Alfred Nobel, dépasser le cadre de la recherche scientifique et s’étendre à beaucoup d’autres domaines.
Louis Néel – Nobel Lecture
Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1970
Magnetism and the Local Molecular Field
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Pdf 8.09 MB
Hannes Alfvén – Banquet speech
Hannes Alfvén’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1970
Ers Majestät, Era Kungliga Högheter, Mina Damer och Herrar,
I raden av tacktalare skall jag utnyttja den färdighet, som i hela vår grupp endast Ulf von Euler och jag besitter, den att kunna tala svenska. Jag vill på svenska uttala ett varmt tack till många vänner, som finns här, och många vänner, som inte finns här. Det är särskilt två grupper, som jag vänder mig till. Det är mina vänner, kolleger och medarbetare vid Tekniska Högskolan, som har utfört det mesta av det arbete, som i dag har prisbelönats, under de trettio år minus tre dagar, som jag har haft förmånen att få arbeta på Tekniska Högskolan. Det är också mina vänner och kolleger inom Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien, som har fattat detta för mig och mina medarbetare högst behagliga beslut. Tack skall Ni ha allihopa.
Hannes Alfvén – Other resources
Links to other sites
Hannes Alfven Papers, 1945-1991 from US San Diego
Hannes Alfvén – Biographical
Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén was born in Norrköping, Sweden, in 1908. His parents Johannes Alfvén and Anna-Clara Romanus were both practising physicians. Hannes Alfvén studied at Uppsala University from 1926, he obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1934, in this same year he was appointed lecturer in physics at Uppsala University. In 1937 he became research physicist at the Nobel Institute for Physics in Stockholm, in 1940 he was appointed Professor in the Theory of Electricity at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Professor of Electronics in 1945, and Professor of Plasma Physics in 1963. Since 1967 he is visiting professor of Physics at the University of California at San Diego.
In 1935 Hannes Alfvén married Kerstin Maria Erikson, they have five children: Cecilia, Inger, Gösta, Reidun and Berenike.
Professor Alfvén published a number of papers in physics and astrophysics, and the following monographs: Cosmical Electrodynamics, 1948; Origin of the Solar System, 1956; and together with C.-G. Fälthammar, Cosmical Electrodynamics, Fundamental Principles, 1963.
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Hannes Alfvén died on April 2, 1995.
Louis Néel – Biographical
Louis Néel was born in Lyons on 22 November 1904. In 1931 he married Hélène Hourticq; they have three children, Marie Françoise, Attachée d’Administration at the Conseil d’Etat, Marguerite, married to Guély, Professeur agrégée d’histoire, and Pierre, who is a television producer. Louis Néel studied at the Ecole Normal Supérieure in Paris from 1924-1928, where he was appointed lecturer in 1928. In 1932 he obtained the degree of Doctor of Science at the University of Strasbourg, where he was appointed Professor at the Faculty of Science (1937-1945). He was Professor in Grenoble since 1945. In 1946 he became Director of the laboratory for electrostatics and metal physics (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). From 1954 until 1970 he was Director of the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble and of the Ecole Française de Papeterie; in 1970 he was appointed President of the Institut National Polytechnique in Grenoble. He served as director of the Centre d’Etudes nucléaires de Grenoble from 1956 to 1970. From 1949 to 1969 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the C.N.R.S.; scientific adviser to the French Navy since 1952; French representative at the Scientific Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Louis Néel began his first research work on magnetism between 1928 and 1939 in Professor Weiss’ laboratory in Strasbourg. Called up for war service in 1939, he worked on the defence of ships of the French fleet against German magnetic mines and invented an effective new method of protection (neutralization). After the Armistice of 1940, he went to Grenoble and established the Laboratoire d’Electrostatique et de Physique du Métal, which in 1946 became one of the external laboratories of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. This laboratory extended rapidly and gave rise to new laboratories; even so, it still has a staff of more than 250 at the present time.
In 1956 Louis Néel created and subsequently developed, as part of the French Atomic Energy Commission, the Centre d’Etudes Nucléaires de Grenoble. He also contributed to the decision to install the Franco-German high-flux reactor in Grenoble (1967).
Although he continued with research, sometimes critical and difficult, on the specific heat of nickel, Louis Néel has mainly concentrated on theoretical problems, which have formed the subject of more than 150 publications. Besides his discovery of the concepts of antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism and its consequences, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Louis Néel tackled and solved a number of other problems and extended our knowledge of many aspects of magnetism. The most important of these are as follows: theory of Rayleigh’s Laws; magnetic properties of fine grains; magnetic viscosity; internal dispersion fields; superantiferromagnetism; and hysteresis.
The following distinctions and honours have been awarded to Professor Néel: Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (military) in 1940, Officier in 1951, Commandeur in 1958, and Grand Officier in 1966; Croix de Guerre with palms (1940); Commandeur de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (I957); Chevalier du Mérite Social (1963); Holweck Prize (1952); old Medal of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (1965). He is a member of the French Academy of Science (Paris, 1953); a foreign member of the Soviet Academy of Science (1959), the Royal Dutch Academy of Science (1959), the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (1964), the Rumanian Academy (1965), the Royal Society (London) (1966), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1966).
Prof. Néel is honorary doctor of the Universities of Graz (1948), Nottingham (1951), Oxford (1958), Louvain (1965), Newcastle (1965), Coimbra (1966), Sherbrooke (1967), and Iassy (1971). He holds an honorary degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Turin (1960). He is an honorary member and former president (1957) of the Société Française de Physique. From 1963 to 1966 he was President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Louis Néel died on November 17, 2000.