Bernard d'Espagnat

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Bernard d'Espagnat (born August 22, 1921 in Fourmagnac , Département Lot ; † August 1, 2015 in Paris ) was a French theoretical physicist and philosopher of science who was best known for his work on the fundamentals of quantum physics and the question of reality .

Life

Bernard d'Espagnat was the son of the Impressionist painter Georges d'Espagnat (1870–1950), a friend of Auguste Renoir . He spent most of his youth in Paris and studied physics at the Ecole Polytechnique and the Institut Henri Poincaré . After completing his doctorate with Louis de Broglie , he was a research assistant at the Center National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) from 1947 to 1957 . During this time he was research assistant with Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago in 1951/1952 and in 1953/1954 at the newly founded European nuclear research center CERN in its provisional headquarters at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, headed by Niels Bohr . From 1954 to 1959 he was a member of the theory group at CERN in Geneva.

From 1959 until his retirement in 1987, d'Espagnat taught at the Sorbonne in Paris and from 1980 was also director of the laboratory for theoretical physics and elementary particles at the University of Paris XI (Orsay). In 1977 he was visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin and in 1984 at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Since 1975 he has been a member of the International Academy of the Philosophy of Science in Brussels and since 1996 of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques . In 2009 he was awarded the Templeton Prize . The award is endowed with one million pounds (around 1.08 million euros).

statement

He denies the existence of an "objective reality": According to d'Espagnat, what physics is all about is only an empirical reality, not the so-called ontological reality, that is, "reality as it really is". The empirical reality is also objective, but only in the weakened sense that every physicist will measure the same thing with a given experimental setup. But it is not in that common “strong” sense that what is measured also exists before or without measurement. To put it bluntly: The moon is not there if no one is looking, even if everyone who looks always sees the moon. (from the interview "Reality is not in things" in the FAZ on March 2, 2008).

Awards

Works

Books

  • Basic problems of current physics ("Conceptions de la physique contemporaine. Les interprétations de la mécanique quantique et de la mesure"). Vieweg publishing house, Braunschweig 1971.
  • Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics . new edition Perseus Books, Reading, Mass. 1999, ISBN 0-7382-0104-9 (reprint of the New York 1971 edition).
  • In search of the real. From the point of view of a physicist ("A la recherche du réel. Le regard d'un physicien"). Springer, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-540-12058-0 .
  • Un atome de sagesse. Propos d'un physicien sur le réel voilé . Du Seuil, Paris 1982, ISBN 2-02-006118-X .
  • Une incertaine réalité. Le monde quantique, la connaissance et la durée . Edition Gauthiers-Vilars, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-04-016404-9 .
  • Penser la science ou les enjeux du savoir . Dunod, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-04-018895-9 .
  • Georges d'Espagnat . Bibliothèque des arts, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-85047-156-9 .
  • Regards sur la matière des quanta et des choses . Fayard, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-213-03039-1 (together with Étienne Klein).
  • Le Réel voilé. Analysis of the concept quantiques . Fayard, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-213-59310-8 .
  • Physique et réalité. Un débat avec Bernard d'Espagnat . Editions Frontières, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-86332-216-8 .
  • Ondine et les feux du savoir. Carnets d'une petite sirène . Stock, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-234-05032-4 .
  • On physics and philosophy (“Traité de physique et de philosophie”). Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2006, ISBN 978-0-691-11964-9 .

Essays

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Espagnat, Bernard d '
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French theoretical physicist and philosopher of science
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Fourmagnac , France
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 2015
Place of death Paris