Maurice Marc Lévy (7 September 1922 – 13 April 2022) was a French theoretical physicist known for his work on the

Sigma model In physics, a sigma model is a field theory that describes the field as a point particle confined to move on a fixed manifold. This manifold can be taken to be any Riemannian manifold, although it is most commonly taken to be either a Lie group or ...

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

. He was president of the

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

from 1973 to 1976.

Education

Lévy was born in

Tlemcen Tlemcen (; ) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran and is the capital of Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the port of Rachgoun. It had a population of ...

of the

French Algeria French Algeria ( until 1839, then afterwards; unofficially ; ), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of History of Algeria, Algerian history when the country was a colony and later an integral part of France. French rule lasted until ...

. He obtained his

baccalauréat The ''baccalauréat'' (; ), often known in France colloquially as the ''bac'', is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the ''lycée'') by meeting certain ...

at the Lycée Bugeaud in

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

and then graduated in mathematics and physics from the

University of Algiers The University of Algiers 1 (), commonly called Benyoucef Benkhedda, is a public research university based in Algiers, Algeria. Founded in 1909 from the amalgamation of different French colonial educational institutions, it has become the oldes ...

. He then obtained a graduate degree in optics and entered 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 ...

in 1945. He left Algeria for France and joined the Physical Research Laboratory of the Sorbonne ( LRPS), directed by Jean Cabannes. After a brief stay at the University of Leiden, he defended his thesis in 1949 under the supervision of Jean Cabannes. Louis de Broglie participated in his thesis examination.

Career

In 1949, Lévy visited the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

to work under the direction of

Léon Rosenfeld Léon Rosenfeld (; 14 August 1904 in Charleroi – 23 March 1974) was a Belgian physicist and a communist activist. Rosenfeld was born into a secular Jewish family. He was a polyglot who knew eight or nine languages and was fluent in at lea ...

. In 1950, he joined the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...

, directed by

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...

. Lévy returned to France in 1952, became senior researcher at the CNRS and worked in the physics department of 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 ...

(ENS), directed by

Yves Rocard Yves-André Rocard (; 22 May 1903 – 16 March 1992) was a French physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb for France. Lifes Rocard was born in Vannes. After obtaining a double doctorate in mathematics (1927) and physics (1928) he was aw ...

. He taught quantum mechanics for twelve years to first-year students at the ENS. He was appointed professor at the Bordeaux Faculty of Science in 1953, then at the Paris Faculty of Science in 1954. He participated with

in the creation of the Linear Accelerator Laboratory (LAL). In 1960, he established the physics summer school of

Cargèse Cargèse (; or ; ; ) is a village and '' commune'' in the Corse-du-Sud department of France on the west coast of the island of Corsica, 27 km north of Ajaccio. , the commune had a population of 1,325. The village was established at the ...

in Corsica; eventually, the program grew to the Institut d'Études Scientifiques de Cargèse. Lévy was a professor at the

Pierre and Marie Curie University Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...

right from its foundation in 1971, and a researcher at the Laboratory of Theoretical and High Energy Physics (LPTHE), collaborating in particular with Jean-Louis Basdevant and with

John Iliopoulos John (Jean) Iliopoulos (Greek language, Greek: Ιωάννης Ηλιόπουλος; 1940) is a Greeks, Greek physicist. He is the first person to present the Standard Model of particle physics in a single report. He is best known for his predictio ...

Notable research and recognition

In 1960, he co-authored with

Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the funda ...

a seminal paper on the

, which served as a cynosure for

in the following decades, providing the modern framework for understanding the weak interactions and their interplay with

chiral symmetry breaking In particle physics, chiral symmetry breaking generally refers to the dynamical spontaneous breaking of a chiral symmetry associated with massless fermions. This is usually associated with a gauge theory such as quantum chromodynamics, the quant ...

by the strong interactions. He was made Commandeur of the Légion d'honneur on 13 July 1993.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levy, Maurice 1922 births 2022 deaths 20th-century French physicists 21st-century French physicists University of Algiers alumni University of Paris alumni French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists Academic staff of the University of Bordeaux Academic staff of Pierre and Marie Curie University Commanders of the Legion of Honour People from Tlemcen CNES presidents