Albert J. Libchaber

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Albert Joseph Libchaber (born October 23, 1934 in Paris ) is a French physicist who deals with chaos physics and biophysics .

Life

Libchaber studied at the University of Paris , where he made his intermediate diploma in mathematics in 1956. Then he began studying telecommunications engineering at the École Nationale Supérieure des Telecommunications (diploma 1958). He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in physics in 1959 . In 1965 he received his doctorate at the École normal supérieure and then worked at Bell Laboratories until 1966, where he also conducted regular summer research until 1972. In 1974 he became director of research at the CNRS in Paris. From 1983 to 1991 he was a professor at the University of Chicago and from 1991 at Princeton University , where he was also a NEC Research Fellow in the same year. In 1993 he became James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor there. From 1994 he was a professor at Rockefeller University , where he is currently (2007) director of the Laboratory for Experimental Condensed Matter Physics of the Centers for Studies in Physics and Biology and Detlev W. Bronk Professor.

plant

Libchaber is known for his classic experiments on the path to chaos ( turbulence ) in the Rayleigh-Benard experiment . This is considered to be the first clear experimental evidence of the bifurcation cascade leading to turbulence (period doubling), confirming the theoretical predictions of Mitchell Feigenbaum (whom he made in 1979). He measured the temperatures with very small (micrometer) bolometers and initially used liquid helium, in accordance with his research field of superfluids at the time , and later mercury, with an additional magnetic field as an additional variable parameter, carried out with Stephan Fauve in 1981.

In the 2000s he investigated a. a. nonlinear dynamics in biological systems, e.g. B. Schools of fish (which he studies with a model of filaments in moving soap-skin films) and the behavior of DNA in a convective, hot environment similar to some models of the “primordial soup” in which life on earth originated. In addition, he investigates minimal cellular conditions under which life arises in artificially produced biochemical models of cells (vesicle bioreactors), with a "basic equipment" of the cell from Escherichia coli , without its genetic material, which has been added in a controlled manner. The E. coli cell building blocks could be enclosed with a trick with a double membrane made of phospholipids as a cell wall, which with the help of a bacterial toxin became permeable for the nutrients in the surrounding nutrient fluid. In this way, the cells produced proteins for several days (2004).

Libchaber was a McArthur Fellow in 1986 and received the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1986 with Feigenbaum . In 1999 he received the Prix des Trois Physiciens of the Fondation de France. Libchaber is a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences , the National Academy of Sciences (2007) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1986). He received the Palmes académiques and is a Knight of the Legion of Honor in France.

Fonts

  • Libchaber "From Chaos to Turbulence in Benard Convection", Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Vol. 413, 1987, p. 63

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Libchaber, Maurer “Une Experience de Rayleigh-Benard en geometrie reduite: multiplication, accrochage et demultiplication des frequencies”, Journal de Physique, Colloques 41-C3, 1980, pp. 51-56, “A Rayleigh Benard Experiment: Helium in a small box ", Proceedings NATO Advanced Summer Institute on Nonlinear Phenomena, 1982, p. 259 (reprinted in Cvitanovic" Universality in Chaos "1993)
  2. ↑ Libchaber, Fauve, Laroche "2-Parameter Study of the Routes to Chaos", Physica D, Vol. 7, 1983, pp. 73-84, "Period doubling cascade in mercury, a quantitative measurement", Journal de Physique Lettres, Vol. 43, 1982, L 211 (reprinted in Cvitanovic "Universality in Chaos" 1993)
  3. ↑ Libchaber, Vincent Noireaux: A vesicle bioreactor as a step toward an artificial cell assembly . Proceedings of the National Academy of the USA, Vol. 101, 2004, p. 17669
personal data
SURNAME Libchaber, Albert J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Libchaber, Albert Joseph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French physicist
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris