The Three Physicists Prize (french: Prix des trois physiciens) is a

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 r ...

prize awarded by 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, Savoi ...

(ENS) 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 the Eugène Bloch Foundation. It is named in honour of the

physicists A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

Henri Abraham Henri Abraham (1868–1943) was a French physicist who made important contributions to the science of radio waves. He performed some of the first measurements of the propagation velocity of radio waves, helped develop France's first triode vacu ...

, Eugene Bloch and

Georges Bruhat Georges Bruhat (21 December 18871 January 1945In the dedication by Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat: The date is given as December 31, 1944 in .) was a French physicist. Life and academic career Bruhat studied physics from 1906 until 1909 at the Écol ...

, who were successive directors of the physics laboratory at the ENS and all of whom were murdered in

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...

between 1943 and 1945. The prize was established by Bloch's widow.

Winners

* 1951

Jean Cabannes Jean Cabannes (born 12 August 1885 – died 31 October 1959) was a French physicist specialising in optics. Education and career Cabannes studied at the Lycée de Nice and entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1906. From 1910 to 1914, Caba ...

* 1952 Maurice Bayen * 1953 Gustave Ribaud * 1954 Maurice Ponte * 1955 ''not awarded'' * 1956

Nevill Francis Mott Sir Nevill Francis Mott (30 September 1905 – 8 August 1996) was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors. ...

* 1957 H. B. G. Casimir * 1958

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

* 1959

André Danjon André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese language, Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French language, French-s ...

* 1960 Gaston Dupouy * 1961 Max Morand * 1962 Jean Weigle * 1963

Louis Néel Louis Eugène Félix Néel (22 November 1904 – 17 November 2000) was a French physicist born in Lyon who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 for his studies of the magnetic properties of solids. Biography Néel studied at the Lycée ...

* 1964

André Lallemand André Lallemand (; September 29, 1904 – March 24, 1978) was a French astronomer and director of the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris. Lallemand made important contributions to the development of photomultipliers for astronomical use and the "e ...

* 1965

Alfred Kastler Alfred Kastler (; 3 May 1902 – 7 January 1984) was a French physicist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Biography Kastler was born in Guebwiller (Alsace, German Empire) and later attended the Lycée Bartholdi in Colmar, Alsace, and École Normale Sup ...

* 1966

Francis Perrin Francis Perrin may refer to: * Francis Perrin (actor) (born 1947), French actor, screenwriter and director * Francis Perrin (physicist) (1901–1992), French physicist See also

* Perrin (disambiguation) {{hndis, Perrin, Francis ...

* 1967 Pierre Auger * 1968 Jean-François Denisse * 1969

Jean-Claude Pecker Jean-Claude Pecker (10 May 1923 – 20 February 2020) was a French astronomer, astrophysicist and author, member of the French Academy of Sciences and director of the Nice Observatory. He served as the secretary-general of the International As ...

* 1970 Albert Kirrmann * 1971

Jean Coulomb Jean Coulomb (7 November 1904 – 26 February 1999) was a French geophysicist and mathematician, and one of the early members of the Bourbaki group of mathematicians. Biography From April 1935 to 1937, he was a member of the Bourbaki grou ...

* 1972

André Guinier André Guinier (1 August 1911 – 3 July 2000) was a French physicist who did important work in the field of X-ray diffraction and solid-state physics. He worked at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, then taught at the University o ...

* 1973 Pierre Grivet * 1974 Jean Rösch * 1975

Jean Brossel Jean Brossel (15 August 1918 – 4 February 2003) was a French physicist known for his work on quantum optics. He was born and died in Périgueux. Brossel passed the entrance exam for l'École normale supérieure (ENS) 1938, but then was for tw ...

* 1976

Pierre Jacquinot Pierre Jacquinot (18 January 1910 – 22 September 2002) was a French physicist. Jacquinot was a PhD student of Aimé Cotton. He was director of Laboratoire Aimé-Cotton during almost 20 years (1951-1962 and 1969-1978). From 1962 to 1969 he was ...

* 1977

André Maréchal Robert Gaston André Maréchal (10 December 1916 – 14 October 2007) was a French researcher and administrator in optics. André Maréchal was director general of the French Institut d'Optique. In 1986 Maréchal was elected to Honorary Mem ...

* 1978 Marcel Rouault * 1979

Michel Soutif Michel Soutif (8 July 1921 – 28 June 2016), Officier de la Légion d’honneur, Grand Officier de l’ordre national du Mérite, Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mali, was a French scientist and educator, known for his major contribution to ...

* 1980 Robert Klapisch * 1981

Évry Schatzman Evry Léon Schatzman (16 September 1920 – 25 April 2010) was a French scientist hailed as "the father of modern French astrophysics". Background His father, Benjamin Schatzman, was a dentist born in Tulcea, Romania, and emigrated at a young ag ...

* 1982

Philippe Nozières Philippe Pierre Gaston François Nozières (12 April 1932 – 15 June 2022) was a French physicist working at Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France. He was born on 12 April 1932 in Paris and died on 15 June 2022, aged 90. Education In 19 ...

* 1983 Bernard Cagnac * 1984

Raimond Castaing Raimond Bernard René Castaing (December 28, 1921 – April 10, 1998), also spelt as Raymond Castaing, was a French solid state physicist and inventor of various materials characterization methods. He was the founder of the French school of microa ...

* 1985 Sylvain Libermann * 1986

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (; born 1 April 1933) is a French physicist. He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips for research in methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms. Currently he is still an activ ...

* 1987

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 É ...

* 1988 Philippe Meyer * 1989

Édouard Brézin Édouard Brézin (; born 1 December 1938 Paris) is a French theoretical physicist. He is professor at Université Paris 6, working at the laboratory for theoretical physics (LPT) of the École Normale Supérieure since 1986. Biography Brézin ...

* 1990

Claude Bouchiat Claude Bouchiat, born 16 May 1932, is a French physicist, member of the French Academy of sciences. Biography Graduate of the École Polytechnique in 1955, he was director of research at the CNRS in the theoretical physics laboratory of the � ...

* 1991 Julien Bok * 1992 Michel Davier * 1993 Jean-Louis Steinberg * 1994 Jacques Dupont-Roc * 1995 Bernard Jancovici * 1996 Jean-Claude Le Guillou * 1997 Claire Lhuillier * 1998 Albert Libchaber * 1999 Claudette Rigaux * 2000

Franck Laloë Franck Laloë (born May 28, 1940) is a French quantum physicist, author, and open archive initiator. He is emeritus research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Education and career Laloë was born in Rabat, ...

* 2001 Gérald Bastard * 2002

Walter Kohn Walter Kohn (; March 9, 1923 – April 19, 2016) was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist. He was awarded, with John Pople, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998. The award recognized their contributions to the unde ...

* 2003 Pierre Encrenaz * 2004

Christophe Salomon Christophe Salomon (born in 1953) is a French physicist. Specialist in quantum optics and cold atoms, Christophe Salomon is interested in the superfluidity of quantum gases and in the measurement of time using atomic clocks. A pioneer in this di ...

* 2005

André Neveu André Neveu (; born 28 August 1946) is a French physicist working on string theory and quantum field theory who coinvented the Neveu–Schwarz algebra and the Gross–Neveu model. Biography Neveu studied in Paris at the École Normale Supér ...

* 2006 Yves Couder * 2007 Sébastien Balibar * 2008 Stéphan Fauve * 2009

Jean-Loup Puget Jean-Loup Puget (born 7 March 1947) is a French astrophysicist. His current research interests lie in the Cosmic Microwave Background. Jean-Loup Puget and his collaborators reported the first identification of the Cosmic infrared background usi ...

* 2010

Jean Dalibard Jean Dalibard (born 8 December 1958) is a French physicist, Professor at the École Polytechnique, member of the French Academy of Sciences and a researcher at the École Normale Supérieure. In 2009, Dalibard received the Blaise Pascal medal of ...

* 2011

Giorgio Parisi Giorgio Parisi (born 4 August 1948) is an Italian theoretical physicist, whose research has focused on quantum field theory, statistical mechanics and complex systems. His best known contributions are the QCD evolution equations for parton densit ...

* 2012

Françoise Combes Françoise Combes (; born 12 August 1952) is a French astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory and a professor at the Collège de France where she has been the chair of Galaxies and cosmology since 2014. On 15 September 2017 the 'City of Succes ...

* 2013 Jean Iliopoulos * 2014 François Biraben * 2015

Bernard Derrida Bernard Derrida (; born 1952) is a French theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in statistical mechanics, and is the eponym of ''Derrida plots'', an analytical technique for characterising differences between Boolean networks. Biogr ...

* 2016 Vincent Croquette * 2017 Michel Brune * 2018 Edith Falgarone * 2019 Vincent Hakim . * 2020 Bernard Placais * 2021

Marc Mézard Marc Mézard (born 29 August 1957) is a French physicist and academic administrator. He was, from 2012 to 2022, the director of the ''École normale supérieure'' (ENS). He is the co-author of two books. Early life Marc Mézard was born on 29 A ...

References

Physics awards French science and technology awards {{sci-award-stub