Laurent Nottale (born 29 July 1952) is an astrophysicist, a retired director of research at

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 ...

, and a researcher at the

Paris Observatory The Paris Observatory (, ), a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world. Its historic building is on the Left Ban ...

. He is the author and inventor of the theory of scale relativity, which aims to unify

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

and

relativity theory The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phe ...

Scientific career

Nottale began his professional work in the domain of

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

. He defended his PhD Thesis in June 1980, entitled "Perturbation of the Hubble relation by clusters of galaxies", in which he showed that clusters of galaxies as a whole may act as

gravitational lens A gravitational lens is matter, such as a galaxy cluster, cluster of galaxies or a point particle, that bends light from a distant source as it travels toward an observer. The amount of gravitational lensing is described by Albert Einstein's Ge ...

es on distant sources. Some of these results were reported in ''Nature''. He also published a popular book ''L'Univers et la Lumière'', Flammarion, Nouvelle Bibliothèque Scientifique 1994, Champs 1998) for which he received a prize in 1995 (Prix du livre d'Astronomie Haute-Maurienne-Vanoise). According to Vincent Bontems and there are two distinct phases in Nottale's scientific career. From 1975 to 1991 this included conventional topics, such as gravitational lenses, while from 1984 onwards he focused on developing his theory of scale relativity, a proposal for a theory of

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, 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 whi ...

based on

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a Shape, geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scale ...

space-time In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three-dimensional space, three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum (measurement), continu ...

The theory of scale relativity

The theory of scale relativity emerged out of a desire to establish a foundation for

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

based on first physical principles: the principle of relativity, the geometric interpretation of physical properties and the optimization principle interpreted as a

geodesic In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the locally shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a conn ...

principle. In a similar way that

gravity In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force b ...

is the manifestation of the intrinsic curved geometry of

spacetime In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetime diagrams are useful in visualiz ...

, the quantum properties here are the manifestation of another property of spacetime at small scales, its intrinsic non-differentiability. Besides proposing a better foundation for microphysical

, it also proposes that many macroscopic classical systems with highly chaotic behaviour can be considered as non-differentiable and thus described by macroscopic quantum-like laws. Examples of such applications are: planetary formation in the

protoplanetary disk A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may not be considered an accretion disk; while the two are sim ...

phase, violent ejection processes such as the creation of

planetary nebulae A planetary nebula is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionization, ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives. The term "planetary nebula" is a misnomer because they are unrelated to pla ...

turbulence In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers with no disruption between ...

in fluids. The proposal has not attracted wide acceptance by the scientific community.

Selected publications

* ''Scale Relativity And Fractal Space-Time: A New Approach to Unifying Relativity and Quantum Mechanics''. 2011 1st ed. World Scientific Publishing Company. () * ''Fractal Space-Time and Micro-physics'', Editions World Scientific, May 1993 () (The reference book about Scale Relativity theory). * ''L'univers et la lumière, Cosmologie classique et mirages gravitationnels'', Éditions Flammarion, août 1993 () * ''La Relativité dans tous ses états : du mouvements aux changements d'échelle'', Éditions Hachette, 1998 () * ''Les arbres de l'évolution'', Laurent Nottale, Jean Chaline et Pierre Grou, Éditions Hachette, mars 2000 ()

References

External links

Laurent Nottale's personal page
* 265 articles on line (1975-2021)
Google Scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nottale, Laurent 1952 births French cosmologists Philosophers of cosmology French relativity theorists Living people Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research

Scientific career

The theory of scale relativity

Selected publications

See also

References

External links