Alfred Chancellor

Alfred Kastler (1966)

Alfred Kastler's poem

Alfred Kastler (born May 3, 1902 in Gebweiler , Alsace ; † January 7, 1984 in Bandol ) was a French physicist born in Alsace, then part of the German Empire, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1966 .

Live and act

Kastler attended the Lycée Bartholdi in Colmar . In 1921 he entered the École normal supérieure (ENS) in Paris . After his studies he worked from 1926 as a physics teacher at the Lyceum (grammar school) in Mulhouse , then in Colmar and Bordeaux . From 1931 to 1936 he was assistant to Pierre Daure at the Faculté de Science (University) Bordeaux, where he was professor from 1938 to 1941 (after a period of two years as a lecturer from 1936 to 1938 in Clermont-Ferrand ). During his time in Bordeaux, he developed into a specialist in atomic spectroscopy ( Raman spectroscopy , fluorescence spectroscopy ). In 1941, at the invitation of Georges Bruhat, he went to Paris to initially temporarily head the physics department at ENS. In 1952 he received a professorship at the Faculté de Science in Paris. In 1953/54 he was visiting professor in Leuven .

Together with Jean Brossel, Kastler developed important spectroscopic methods in atomic physics, such as the double resonance method (coupling of optical excitation and microwave excitation) and, above all, the effect of " optical pumping ". This provided the basis for the theory of measles and lasers . He was director of the Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Hertzienne des ENS from 1951 until his resignation in 1972 (afterwards Brossel was director after he was previously vice director). Today the laboratory is named after Kastler and Brossel.

Kastler received honorary doctorates from Pisa (1960), Oxford (1966) and Leuven (1955). He was an honorary member of the French and Polish Physical Societies and the Optical Society of America , whose Mees Medal he received in 1962. In 1954 he received the Holweck Prize of the French and English Physical Societies. Since 1964 he was a member of the French Academy of Sciences ( Académie des sciences ). He was also a member of the Belgian Academy of Sciences. In 1965 he received the CNRS gold medal . In addition, Kastler was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina - National Academy of Sciences .

In 1966 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of new spectroscopic methods.

Alfred Kastler was also a poet and wrote Europe ma Patrie - German songs of a French European - Librairie Martin Flinker - Paris. In 1979 he warned urgently about the harmful global consequences of industrial animal breeding (especially for the countries of the Third World) and pointed out the animal suffering associated with it.

He had been married to the history teacher Elise Cosset since 1924, with whom he had three children, including the physicist Daniel Kastler .

See also

List of Nobel Laureates in Physics

Publications

• Recherches sur la fluorescence visible de la vapeur de mercure, Paris: Masson 1935
• La diffusion de la lumière par les milieux troubles; influence de la grossur des particules, Paris: Hermann 1952
• Oeuvre Scientifique, 2 volumes, Ed. CNRS, 1988
• Optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances, Nobel Lecture 1966
• Kastler Optical Pumping as an Example of International Cooperation , Physikalische Blätter, August 1967
• Alfred Kastler: Animals are our biological brothers . In: Unesco service. Issue 3. 1979.

Web links

Commons : Alfred Kastler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1966 award to Alfred Kastler (English)
• Entry about Alfred Kastler in the database of the Wilhelm Exner Medal Foundation .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Member History: Alfred Kastler. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 18, 2018 . 
2. ^ Member entry by Alfred Kastler at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 18, 2018.