Jacques Mering (3 January 1904 – 29 March 1973) was a Lithuanian-born,
naturalised
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the i ...
French engineer well known in the fields of
X-ray crystallography
X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...
and
mineralogy
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...
.
He earned the degree of Diploma in
Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
(''Diplôme d'Ingénieur en Génie Electrique'') from École Spéciale des Travaux Publics, and
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...
(''Licencié de Sciences'') from Faculté des sciences. He served in the
French Army
The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed For ...
for a year during 1931–1932 following
conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...
. He was director of research at the
Centre National de Recherche Scientifique
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...
(CNRS; the French National Centre for Scientific Research) in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, and subsequently Director of CNRS Laboratory in
Orléans
Orléans (;["Orleans"](_blank)
(US) and [Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, co ...]
, whom he trained in X-ray crystallography. Franklin's X-ray crystallographic image, popularised as
Photo 51 '
''Photo 51'' is an X-ray based fiber diffraction image of a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fiber taken by Raymond Gosling, a graduate student working under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin in May 1952 at King's College London, while ...
, became the single piece of clue for the discovery of the double-stranded helical
structure of DNA by
James Watson
James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...
and
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical struc ...
in 1953.
Biography
Mering was born to a
Litvak family in
Vilkaviškis
Vilkaviškis () is a city in southwestern Lithuania, the administrative center of the Vilkaviškis District Municipality. It is located northwest from Marijampolė, at the confluence of of and rivers.
The city got its name from the Vilka ...
,
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
, then within the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. After formal education in Russia, he went to France in 1921 to study engineering. In 1925 he obtained the degree of ''Diplôme d'Ingénieur en Génie Electrique'' from École Spéciale des Travaux Publics in Paris. He joined the Faculté des sciences in Paris as research engineer in 1925, and at the same time enrolled in the institute for the course of ''Licencié de Sciences''. He graduated in 1928. He continued to work as research engineer till 1931. In the late 1920s he trained for X-ray crystallography under Marcel Mathieu (who was trained in 1925–1926 under the Nobel laureate crystallographer
William Henry Bragg
Sir William Henry Bragg (2 July 1862 – 12 March 1942) was an English physicist, chemist, mathematician, and active sportsman who uniquelyThis is still a unique accomplishment, because no other parent-child combination has yet shared a Nobel ...
at the
Royal Institution
The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...
in London). In 1930 he became a naturalised French citizen. Around 1931–1932 he was drafted to military service in the French Army. After conscription he joined Laboratoire Central des Services Chimique de l'Etat (now Institut National de Recherche Chimique Appliquée), first in
Montpellier
Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...
, then
Grenoble
lat, Gratianopolis
, commune status = Prefecture and commune
, image = Panorama grenoble.png
, image size =
, caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...
(now under
Joseph Fourier University
Joseph Fourier University (UJF, french: Université Joseph Fourier, also known as Grenoble I) was a French university situated in the city of Grenoble and focused on the fields of sciences, technologies and health. It is now part of the Universit ...
), and finally in Paris. At Grenoble he carried out his research as a refugee during World War II, and he set up the first X-ray laboratory there. He returned to Paris after the war in 1945. In 1959 he became director of research at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). In 1969 director of CNRS Laboratory for Research on Imperfect Crystalline Solids in Orléans, where he worked until his death.
[
Mering died on 29 March 1973 after several months of severe illness.][
]
Contributions
Mering published over 100 technical papers on X-ray and electron diffraction of clays and related layer silicates
In chemistry, a silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula , where . The family includes orthosilicate (), metasilicate (), and pyrosilicate (, ). The name is al ...
, and of carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent
In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...
, graphite
Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large ...
, and the phenomena involved in graphitisation. He also performed numerous experimental works on fine-grained materials, including crystal growth in gels, the crystalline organization in cellulose
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...
, the 'decoration' of kaolinite
Kaolinite ( ) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is an important industrial mineral. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral ...
crystals with colloidal gold particles, clays as catalysts
Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...
, montmorillonite
Montmorillonite is a very soft phyllosilicate group of minerals that form when they precipitate from water solution as microscopic crystals, known as clay. It is named after Montmorillon in France. Montmorillonite, a member of the smectite group, ...
s, hectorite
Hectorite is a rare soft, greasy, white clay mineral with a chemical formula of .
Hectorite was first described in 1941 and named for an occurrence in the United States near Hector (in San Bernardino County, California, 30 miles east of Barstow ...
, and clay-organic complexes.[
]
Personal life
Mering was known a strictly principled individual when it comes to academic ethics. He never claimed for co-authorship in publications of theses of his own students. (It was a tradition in France at the time.) Moreover, he never published with more than three co-authors, (one of them would be an external collaborator if there are three) although his laboratory was always in full capacity in terms of researchers.[ His work ethic was noted for its demanding efforts, but during breaks he maintained absolute liberty. Researchers were encourages to make friends with each other, share their meals, make coffee, go for outings, and discuss about their scientific work, politics, and social issues. In his private life, Mering had his own frivolity. Although he was separated from his wife, he never divorced her, while he charmed a mistress and other girls. He was described as "a deliberate charmer with whom all the young women were in love".]
Honours and recognitions
Mering was the founder member and President (1956–1958) of Groupe Français des Argiles and was president. He was president of the Groupe Français d'Etude des Carbones, and of the Association Française de Cristallographie. At the time of his death, he was Vice-Président of the Société Française de Minéralogie et Cristallographie. He was also elected member of the Clay Minerals Society of USA. A technical book titled ''X-Ray Diffraction by Disordered Lamellar Structures'' was published in 1990 by his former students and collaborators in a tribute to his works.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mering, Jacques
1904 births
1973 deaths
People from Vilkaviškis
Naturalized citizens of France
20th-century French engineers
Crystallographers
French Army personnel
French refugees
World War II refugees
Lithuanian emigrants to France
Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research