Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond (born 1940) is a

physicist 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 cau ...

and

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

Biography

After high school in Cannes, Lévy-Leblond studied mathematics at the

Lycée Janson-de-Sailly Lycée Janson-de-Sailly is a ''lycée'' located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. The ''lycéens'' of Janson are called ''les jansoniens'' and they usually refer to their high school as Janson, or JdS. It is the biggest academic inst ...

(Paris), then entered the

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

in 1958. A member of the

Union of Communist Students The Union of Communist Students (, UEC) is a French student political organization, part of the '' Mouvement Jeunes Communistes de France'' (MJCF, Young Communists Movement of France). It was founded in 1939 but dissolved after World War II. The UE ...

(UEC) from 1956, then of the Communist Party, he left in 1968 to become one of the leaders of the movement of radical political criticism of science (see the journal ''Impasciences''). After a doctorate (1962), then a doctorate in physical sciences (theoretical physics) at the University of Orsay in 1965, he was successively research fellow at the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

, lecturer at the

University of Nice Sophia Antipolis A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

, professor at the University of Paris 7, and at the

University of Nice A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

, where he taught in the departments of physics, philosophy and communication. He is professor emeritus at the University of Nice and was programme director at the

Collège international de philosophie The Collège international de philosophie (; CIPh), located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on asso ...

from 2001 to 2007. He has published numerous articles on his research work, which mainly concerns

theoretical A theory is a systematic and rational form of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the conclusions derived from such thinking. It involves contemplative and logical reasoning, often supported by processes such as observation, experimentation, ...

and mathematical physics and

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

. He founded and directs the journal ''Alliage (culture, science, technique)'', directs the ''Science Ouverte'' and ''Points'' (science series) collections at Seuil, and works more generally to "(re )bringing science into culture”.

For a long time, Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond has been sounding the alarm on the need for a public science intelligence, where knowledge, research, culture and politics would be tied together �� In order to preserve authentic scientific discourse and avoid a gap of misunderstanding between specialists and the general public, but also to cultivate the need for a history of science, against the illusion of a universality of scientific knowledge, against the presentism and the fantasies of absolute contemporaneity, against the submission of science to industrial imperatives, against the planetary standardization that the domination of technosciences installs.

According to him

If these enemy brothers, scientism and irrationalism, prosper today, it is because uncultivated science becomes cult or occult with the same ease,

and the divorce between science and culture sometimes seems dangerously consummated. He has developed a discourse on the need for "science criticism", which he compares to

art criticism Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is quest ...

, and calls for "a much higher level of collective consciousness on the part of society as a whole as to what scientific activity is”.

Educational books

* ''Quantique'' (with

Françoise Balibar Françoise Balibar (born Françoise Dumesnil; 1941) is a French physicist and science historian, a professor emeritus at Paris Diderot University. She has extensively published works on Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity, and the history a ...

), original textbook of quantum physics, published by Masson/CNRS. Volume 1 published in 1984, volume 2 unfinished
available onlinearchives-ouvertes.fr (CEL/CNRS
* ''Physics in question'', general physics exercises, in 2 volumes: 1. Mechanics, 2. Electricity and magnetism (Vuibert) * ''Matter – relativistic, quantum, interactive'', Paris, Seuil, 2006 *

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of t ...

, ''The Nature of Physics'', trans. Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond,

, Paris, Seuil, 1980 (Points Sciences collection). .

Essayist and "critic of science"

* Director of the publication of the journal ''Alliage (culture, science, technique)''Home page of the journal
( ANAIS, since 1981) * ''(Self) criticism of science (Texts brought together by Alain Jaubert and Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond)'', Paris, Seuil, 1973

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levy-Leblond, Jean Marc French physicists Living people 1940 births