Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (; 24 October 1932 – 18 May 2007) was a French physicist and the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

laureate in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

in 1991.

Education and early life

He was born 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. Si ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, and was home-schooled to the age of 12. By the age of 13, he had adopted adult reading habits and was visiting museums. Later, de Gennes studied at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

. After leaving the ''École'' in 1955, he became a research engineer at the Saclay center of the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique, working mainly on neutron scattering and magnetism, with advice from Anatole Abragam and

Jacques Friedel Jacques Friedel ForMemRS (; 11 February 1921 – 27 August 2014) was a French physicist and material scientist. Education Friedel attended the Cours Hattemer, a private school. He studied at the École Polytechnique from 1944 to 1946, and the ...

. He defended his Ph.D. in 1957 at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

Career and research

In 1959, he was a postdoctoral research visitor with Charles Kittel at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

, and then spent 27 months in the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

. In 1961, he was assistant professor in Orsay and soon started the Orsay group on

superconductors Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...

. In 1968, he switched to studying

liquid crystal Liquid crystal (LC) is a state of matter whose properties are between those of conventional liquids and those of solid crystals. For example, a liquid crystal may flow like a liquid, but its molecules may be oriented in a crystal-like way. Th ...

s. In 1971, he became professor at the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris n ...

, and participated in STRASACOL (a joint action of

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the ...

, Saclay and ''Collège de France'') on polymer physics. From 1980 on, he became interested in interfacial problems: the dynamics of wetting and

adhesion Adhesion is the tendency of dissimilar particles or surfaces to cling to one another ( cohesion refers to the tendency of similar or identical particles/surfaces to cling to one another). The forces that cause adhesion and cohesion can ...

. He worked on

granular material A granular material is a conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles characterized by a loss of energy whenever the particles interact (the most common example would be friction when grains collide). The constituents that compose ...

s and on the nature of memory objects in the brain.

Awards and honours

Awarded the Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize in 1968. He was awarded the Harvey Prize, Lorentz Medal and

Wolf Prize The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for ''"achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of nati ...

in 1988 and 1990. In 1991, he received the

Nobel Prize in physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

. He was then director of the

École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris ESPCI Paris (officially the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la Ville de Paris; ''The City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution'') is a prestigious grande école founded in 1882 by ...

(ESPCI), a post he held from 1976 until his retirement in 2002. P.G. de Gennes has also received the F.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

in 1997, the Holweck Prize from the joint French and British Physical Society; the Ampere Prize, French Academy of Science; the gold medal from the French CNRS; the Matteuci Medal, Italian Academy; the Harvey Prize, Israel; and polymer awards from both APS and ACS. He was awarded the above-mentioned Nobel Prize for discovering that "methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers". The

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Inst ...

awards the De Gennes Prize biennially, in his honour. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1984. He was awarded A. Cemal Eringen

Medal A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be int ...

in 1998.

Personal life

He married Anne-Marie Rouet (born in 1933) in June 1954. They remained married until his death and had three children together: Christian (born 9 December 1954), Dominique (born 6 May 1956) and Marie-Christine (born 11 January 1958). He also has four children with physicist Françoise Brochard-Wyart (born in 1944) who was one of his former doctoral students and then colleague and co-author. The children are: Claire Wyart (born 16 February 1977), Matthieu Wyart (born 24 May 1978), Olivier Wyart (born 3 August 1984) and Marc de Gennes (born 16 January 1991). Professors John Goodby and George Gray noted in an obituary: "Pierre was a man of great charm and humour, capable of making others believe they, too, were wise. We will remember him as an inspirational lecturer and teacher, an authority on Shakespeare, an expert skier who attended conference lectures appropriately attired with skis to hand, and, robed in red, at the Bordeaux liquid crystal conference in 1978, took great delight in being inaugurated as a Vignoble de St Émilion." In 2003 he was one of 22 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto. On 22 May 2007, his death was made public as official messages and tributes poured in. On nuclear fusion he was quoted as saying, "We say that we will put the Sun into a box. The idea is pretty. The problem is, we don't know how to make the box."

References

External links

* including the Nobel Lecture, 9 December 1991 ''Soft Matter'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Gennes, Pierre Gilles de 1932 births 2007 deaths École Normale Supérieure alumni University of California, Berkeley staff Experimental physicists Collège de France faculty Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society French physicists Members of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences Members of the French Academy of Sciences Nobel laureates in Physics French Nobel laureates Lorentz Medal winners Wolf Prize in Physics laureates ESPCI Paris faculty Liquid crystals Lycée Saint-Louis alumni Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Scientists from Paris Fellows of the American Physical Society Paris-Saclay University people Paris-Saclay University alumni Recipients of the Matteucci Medal French materials scientists Presidents of the Société Française de Physique