Édouard Brézin

Édouard Brézin (born December 1, 1938 in Paris ) is a French theoretical physicist.

Édouard Brézin (2007)

Life

Brezin studied at the École polytechnique from 1958 to 1960 and received his doctorate in 1969 from the University of Paris. From 1963 to 1986 he worked as a theoretical physicist at the French nuclear research center in Saclay . He was also professor at the École polytechnique from 1974 to 2004 and since 1986 member of the laboratory for theoretical physics of the École normal supérieure (where he was officially professor at the University of Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie from 1989 to 2006), whose physics faculty he he in 1986 until 1991 headed. He was visiting professor at Princeton University (1971–1972), Harvard (1974/75, as Loeb Lecturer , and again in 1982), at Oxford University (1983) and Amsterdam University (2000, as van der Waals Lecturer ).

Brezin deals with

• Quantum field theory ,
• the theory of phase transitions in statistical mechanics (following Kenneth Wilson's renormalization group theory),
• High order perturbation theory in quantum mechanics
• and the theory of random matrices.

He worked with Jean Zinn-Justin , Claude Itzykson and Anthony Zee , among others .

Brezin has been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1991 , of which he was president from 2005 to 2006. He has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the Royal Society (2006), the Academia Europaea (2004) and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2013) since 2003 . Brezin is an officer in the Legion of Honor, holder of the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit of Brazil and commander of the National Order of Merit in France and Italy. From 1991 to 2005 he was a member of and professor at the Institut Universitaire de France. From 2003 to 2004 he was President of the French Physical Society. In 1989 he received the Prize of the Three Physicists, in 1981 the Prix ​​Ampère of the French Academy of Sciences and in 1974 the Prix ​​Paul Langevin of the French Physical Society. In 1986 he received the Gentner-Kastler Prize . From 1992 to 2000 he was Chairman of the Board of Directors of CNRS . He was on the advisory board of the International Center of Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste , the Israeli-Palestinian science organization and the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Beijing . From 1995 to 2001 he was President of the Scientific Council of the Électricité de France (EDF).

In 2011 he received the Dirac Medal (ICTP) with John Cardy and Alexander Zamolodchikov .

Web links

• Édouard Brézin. Académie des Sciences(French).