Albert Messiah (23 September 1921,

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...

– 17 April 2013, Paris) was a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique. He spent the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

in the Free France forces: he embarked on 22 June 1940 at Saint-Jean-de-Luz for England and participated in the

Battle of Dakar The Battle of Dakar, also known as Operation Menace, was an unsuccessful attempt in September 1940 by the Allies to capture the strategic port of Dakar in French West Africa (modern-day Senegal). It was hoped that the success of the operation cou ...

with

Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Governm ...

in September 1940. He joined the

Free French Forces __NOTOC__ The French Liberation Army (french: Armée française de la Libération or AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (french: Forces françaises libres, l ...

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, and the 2nd Armored Division in September 1944, and participated in the assault of

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

's Eagle's nest at

Berchtesgaden Berchtesgaden () is a municipality in the district Berchtesgadener Land, Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, near the border with Austria, south of Salzburg and southeast of Munich. It lies in the Berchtesgaden Alps, south of Berchtesgaden; th ...

in 1945. As a French Jew who escaped

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

to fight in the Free French Army of

de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Governm ...

, he was awarded a grant to study and work at the

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

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in the US. The seminars at the Institute were incomprehensible to Messiah who had only a high-school education in physics, and he became depressed to the extent that he considered abandoning his plans to become a physicist. Fortunately he met Robert Marshak at a meeting of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morg ...

. Marshak suggested that Messiah come to the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of ...

and get a US PhD in physics. He returned to France and introduced the first general courses of quantum mechanics in France, at the University of Orsay and joined the newly created atomic energy agency, the

Commissariat à l'énergie atomique The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission or CEA (French: Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), is a French public government-funded research organisation in the areas of energy, defense and securit ...

(CEA) where he stayed until the end of his career. Messiah collaborated with

Oscar W. Greenberg Oscar Wallace Greenberg (born February 18, 1932) is an American physicist and professor at University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. In 1964, he posited the existence of quarks that obeyed parastatistics as ...

on identical particle statistics other than

bosons In particle physics, a boson ( ) is a subatomic particle whose spin quantum number has an integer value (0,1,2 ...). Bosons form one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particle, the other being fermions, which have odd half-integer spi ...

or fermions. This work led directly to Greenberg's suggestion of parastatistics of order 3 for

quarks A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. All common ...

, which was the first suggestion that quarks carry a hidden three-valued charge, now colloquially called "

color charge Color charge is a property of quarks and gluons that is related to the particles' strong interactions in the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The "color charge" of quarks and gluons is completely unrelated to the everyday meanings of colo ...

." His classic textbook on quantum mechanics ''Mecanique Quantique'' (Dunod 1959), translated as ''Quantum Mechanics'' has trained generations of French and world physicists. He was the director of the Physics Division at the CEA and professor at the

Pierre and Marie Curie University Pierre and Marie Curie University (french: link=no, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, UPMC), also known as Paris 6, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the L ...

. He was honored as Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur of France (2012).

References

External links

Testimony
of Albert Messiah on the French Resistance during École polytechnique conference of 14 January 2009, in French 1921 births 2013 deaths French physicists École Polytechnique alumni Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Family: At the time of his death, he was married to Janine Grenier-Messiah. His children were Martine Messiah, Antoine Messiah and Pierre-Henri Messiah. {{france-physicist-stub