Paul Langevin | |
---|---|
Born |
Paris, France |
23 January 1872
Died | 19 December 1946 Paris, France |
(aged 74)
Residence | France |
Nationality | French |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions |
ESPCI École Normale Supérieure |
Alma mater |
University of Cambridge Collège de France University of Paris (Sorbonne) ESPCI |
Doctoral advisors |
Pierre Curie Joseph John Thomson Gabriel Lippmann |
Doctoral students |
Irène Joliot-Curie Louis de Broglie Léon Brillouin |
Known for |
Langevin equation Langevin dynamics Langevin function Twin paradox |
Notable awards |
Hughes Medal (1915) Copley Medal (1940) Fellow of the Royal Society |
Paul Langevin ForMemRS (/lænʒˈveɪn/;French: [pɔl lɑ̃ʒvɛ̃]; 23 January 1872 – 19 December 1946) was a prominent French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an antifascist organization created in the wake of the 6 February 1934 far right riots. Langevin was also president of the Human Rights League (LDH) from 1944 to 1946 – he had just recently joined the French Communist Party. Being a public opponent against fascism in the 1930s resulted in his arrest and consequently he was held under house arrest by the Vichy government for most of the war.
Previously a doctoral student of Pierre Curie and later a lover of Marie Curie, he is also famous for his two US patents with Constantin Chilowsky in 1916 and 1917 involving submarine detection. He is entombed at the Panthéon.
Langevin was born in Paris, and studied at the École de Physique et Chimie and the École Normale Supérieure. He then went to Cambridge University and studied in the Cavendish Laboratory under Sir J. J. Thomson. Langevin returned to the Sorbonne and obtained his Ph.D. from Pierre Curie in 1902. In 1904 he became professor of physics at the Collège de France. In 1926 he became director of the École de Physique et Chimie (later became École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la Ville de Paris, ESPCI ParisTech), where he had been educated. He was elected, in 1934, to the Académie des sciences.