Maurice de Broglie

Maurice de Broglie (painting by Marcel Baschet , 1932)

Louis-César-Victor-Maurice de Broglie (born April 27, 1875 in Paris , † July 14, 1960 in Neuilly-sur-Seine , Hauts-de-Seine department ), known as Maurice de Broglie , was a French physicist . He belonged to the French aristocratic family of the Broglies and was the older brother of the Nobel laureate in physics, Louis de Broglie .

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He was the eldest son of Louis-Alphonse-Victor de Broglie, 5th Duke de Broglie . In 1901 he married Camille Bernou de Rochetaillée (1883–1966) in Paris . They had a daughter, Laure, who was born on November 17, 1904, but died on June 12, 1911 at the age of 6.

After leaving the École Navale as an officer, Maurice de Broglie spent nine years on a gunboat. During his service he took an interest in physics and did research in the field of electromagnetism . Contrary to the wishes of his family, he left the Navy in 1904 to pursue a scientific career, studied with Paul Langevin in Paris and received his doctorate in 1908.

Maurice de Broglie researched X-ray - diffraction and spectroscopy . During World War I he worked for the Navy on wireless communications. After the war he resumed his research in his own laboratory. He also worked occasionally with his younger brother Louis , who followed his career as a physicist and achieved great fame, in part based on joint studies. In 1921 they published an article together. In contrast to the theorist Louis, Maurice was always active as an experimental physicist .

He became a member of the Académie des sciences in 1924 and was elected to the Académie française in 1934 as the successor to the historian Pierre de La Gorce . In 1942 he took over the chair of physics at the Collège de France from his doctoral supervisor Paul Langevin when he was dismissed by the Vichy regime. He only kept the chair until 1945, as Langevin was reinstated after the occupation ended. In 1928 he received the Hughes Medal of the London Royal Society and was also elected as a member on May 23, 1940. From 1927 he was a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences .

With his death in 1960, the duchy de Broglie passed to his younger brother Louis .

Web links

Commons : Maurice de Broglie  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)
• Entry to Broglie; Louis Cesar Victor Maurice de (1875-1960); Duc de Broglie in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
• Literature by and about Maurice de Broglie in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)