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Concept
Bernard d'Espagnat
Summary
Bernard d'Espagnat (22 August 1921 – 1 August 2015) was a French theoretical physicist, philosopher of science, and author, best known for his work on the nature of reality. Wigner-d'Espagnat inequality is partially named after him.
Quote: "The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment."
d'Espagnat was born on 22 August 1921 in Fourmagnac, France, but spent most of his early years in Paris, where his father, a post-impressionist painter, and mother imbued him with a love of classic literature and the arts. Attending school in Paris, he was drawn to the humanities, especially philosophy. Despite his love of philosophy, d'Espagnat focused on science and mathematics, believing that advances in philosophy would require the knowledge and practice of contemporary science.
In 1939, as d'Espagnat made plans to enter the Ecole Polytechnique, World War II put his education on hold.
D'Espagnat obtained his Ph.D. from the Sorbonne at the Institut Henri Poincaré under the guidance of Louis de Broglie. He was a researcher at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique CNRS, 1947-57. During this period he also worked with Enrico Fermi in Chicago, 1951–52, and on a research project led by Niels Bohr at the Institute in Copenhagen, 1953-54. He then pursued his scientific career as the first theoretical physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, 1954-59.
From 1959 until his retirement in 1987, D'Espagnat was a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Sciences at the Sorbonne University. He was director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics and Elementary Particles at the University of Paris XI (Orsay), 1980-87. He was a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1977, and at the University of California - Santa Barbara in 1984.
He has been a member of the Brussels International Academy of the Philosophy of Science since 1975, and of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences since 1996.
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