French physicist
Alfred Kastler
(
French:
[kastl??]
; 3 May 1902 ? 7 January 1984) was a
French
physicist
, and
Nobel Prize laureate
.
[2]
He is known for the development of
optical pumping
.
Biography
[
edit
]
Kastler was born in
Guebwiller
(
Alsace
,
German Empire
) and later attended the
Lycee
Bartholdi in
Colmar, Alsace
, and
Ecole Normale Superieure
in Paris in 1921. After his studies, in 1926 he began teaching
physics
at the Lycee of
Mulhouse
, and then taught at the
University of Bordeaux
, where he was a university professor until 1941. Georges Bruhat asked him to come back to the Ecole Normale Superieure, where he finally obtained a chair in 1952.
Collaborating with
Jean Brossel
, he researched
quantum mechanics
, the interaction between
light
and
atoms
, and
spectroscopy
. Kastler, working on combination of
optical resonance
and
magnetic resonance
, developed the technique of "
optical pumping
". Those works led to the completion of the theory of
lasers
and
masers
.
He won the
Nobel Prize in Physics
in 1966 "for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms".
He was president of the board of the Institut d'optique theorique et appliquee and served as the first chairman of the
non-governmental organization
(NGO)
Action Against Hunger
.
Kastler also wrote poetry (in
German
). In 1971 he published
Europe, ma patrie: Deutsche Lieder eines franzosischen Europaers
(i.e.
Europe, my fatherland: German songs of a French European
).
In 1976, Kastler was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
.
[3]
In 1978 he became foreign member of the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
.
[4]
In 1979, Kastler was awarded the
Wilhelm Exner Medal
.
[5]
Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel
[
edit
]
Professor Kastler spent most of his research career at the
Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris
where he started after the war with his student,
Jean Brossel
a small research group on spectroscopy.
Over the forty years that followed, this group has trained many of young physicists and had a significant impact on the development of the science of
atomic physics
in
France
. The Laboratoire de Spectroscopie hertzienne has then been renamed
Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel
in 1994 and has got a part of its laboratory in
Universite Pierre et Marie Curie
mainly at the
Ecole Normale Superieure
.
Global policy
[
edit
]
He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a
world constitution
.
[6]
[7]
As a result, for the first time in human history, a
World Constituent Assembly
convened to draft and adopt the
Constitution for the Federation of Earth
.
[8]
Death
[
edit
]
Professor Kastler died on 7 January 1984, in
Bandol
, France.
[9]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
1901?1925
| |
---|
1926?1950
| |
---|
1951?1975
| |
---|
1976?2000
| |
---|
2001?
present
| |
---|
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Academics
| |
---|
People
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|