Louis Leprince-Ringuet (27 March 1901, in

Alès Alès (; oc, Alès) is a commune in the Gard department in the Occitanie region in southern France. It is one of the sub-prefectures of the department. It was formerly known as ''Alais''. Geography Alès lies north-northwest of Nîmes, o ...

– 23 December 2000, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

) was a French physicist,

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

engineer, essayist and historian of science. Leprince-Ringuet advocated strongly for the creation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and remained its indefatigable supporter. He was vice chair (1956–69) and chair (1964–66) of CERN’s scientific policy committee. He was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

. He is known for early discovery of the

kaon KAON (Karlsruhe ontology) is an ontology infrastructure developed by the University of Karlsruhe and the Research Center for Information Technologies in Karlsruhe. Its first incarnation was developed in 2002 and supported an enhanced version of ...

. He also coined the term

hyperon In particle physics, a hyperon is any baryon containing one or more strange quarks, but no charm, bottom, or top quark. This form of matter may exist in a stable form within the core of some neutron stars. Hyperons are sometimes generically re ...

in 1953.

Honors

* from CNRS and

École polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

, and part of the French National Institutes of Nuclear and Particle Physics (IN2P3), was named in his honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leprince-Ringuet, Louis 1901 births 2000 deaths École Polytechnique alumni Télécom Paris alumni Supélec alumni People from Alès French physicists French telecommunications engineers French electrical engineers Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Historians of science Members of the Académie Française Members of the French Academy of Sciences 20th-century French historians French male essayists 20th-century French essayists 20th-century French male writers People associated with CERN Members of the American Philosophical Society