Science in the World around Us: Electricity Was Not Invented by Trying to Make Better Candles
Abstract
It has often been said that the heat engine brought more to science than science to the heat engine. However the arrow has reversed, starting with James Clerk Maxwell. It is interesting to explore what science is involved behind standard devices of our time like GPS, lasers, nuclear magnetic resonance, microelectronics, etc.
About the speaker
Prof. Edouard Brezin received his DSc from the University of Paris in 1969. He was Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique from 1974 to 2004, and was concurrently Professor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University since 1989. He was a member of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of Ecole Normale Superieure since 1974, and has been Professor Emeritus since 2007.
Prof. Brezin's current research interests include statistical physics, random matrices and matrix models. He contributed to the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic physical properties of matter and high energy physics. He was a leader in critical behavior theory and developed methods for distilling testable predictions for critical exponents. In using field theoretic techniques in the study of condensed matter, he helped further modern theories of magnetism and the quantum Hall effect.
Prof. Brezin is a Foreign Associate of the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was elected a Member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1991, and served as President of the Academy from 2005 to 2006. He is a commander in the French National Order of Merit and an Officer of the Legion of Honor. He received numerous awards including the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in 2011 and the President’s Medal of the Institute of Physics in 2004.
