François Roddier (23 September 1936 – 19 August 2023) was a French physicist and astronomer.

Biography

François Roddier was born in 1936 in Paris. He received 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 ...

degree in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

in 1954. In 1956 he received a degree from the

École normale supérieure (Paris) The – PSL (; also known as ENS, , Ulm or ENS Paris) is a ''grande école'' in Paris, France. It is one of the constituent members of Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL). Due to its selectivity, historical role, and influence within F ...

in Physical Sciences. In 1960, he entered

French National Centre for Scientific Research 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 engi ...

in the Sciences of the Universe section where he completed his doctoral thesis under the direction of

Jacques Blamont Jacques Émile Blamont (; 13 October 1926 – 13 April 2020) was a French astrophysicist, author and the founder scientific and technical director of National Centre for Space Studies (CNES-Centre national d'études spatiales), known to ha ...

. There he developed an atomic jet

spectrograph An optical spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify mate ...

and used it to study the Sun. He defended his thesis in 1964. In 1965, he was named professor at the Université de Nice where he created a department of astrophysics. He formed a research group in

helioseismology Helioseismology is the study of the structure and dynamics of the Sun through its oscillations. These are principally caused by sound waves that are continuously driven and damped by convection near the Sun's surface. It is similar to geoseismol ...

. He was interested in the optical effects of atmospheric turbulence and developed high angular resolution interferometric observation methods with his spouse Claude Roddier. In 1984, he immigrated with his family to the United States to work for the

National Optical Astronomy Observatory The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) was the United States national observatory for ground-based nighttime ultraviolet-optical-infrared (OUVIR) astronomy. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded NOAO to provide forefront astronom ...

where he participated in the development of

adaptive optics Adaptive optics (AO) is a technique of precisely deforming a mirror in order to compensate for light distortion. It is used in Astronomy, astronomical telescopes and laser communication systems to remove the effects of Astronomical seeing, atmo ...

. He proposed a new type of

wavefront sensor In physics, the wavefront of a time-varying ''wave field'' is the set ( locus) of all points having the same ''phase''. The term is generally meaningful only for fields that, at each point, vary sinusoidally in time with a single temporal frequ ...

called a curvature sensor. In 1988 he moved to the Institute for Astrophysics at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

where he created a group for the research and development of adaptive optics. This group built the first adaptive optics system based on bimorph deformable mirrors and curvature sensors. The principle would be used in the adaptive optics systems in the

Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope The Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is located near the summit of Mauna Kea mountain on Hawaii's Big Island at an altitude of 4,204 meters (13,793 feet), part of the Mauna Kea Observatory. Operational since 1979, the telescope is a Pri ...

, for that of the Japanese

Subaru Telescope is the telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, located at the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii. It is named after the open star cluster known in English as the Pleiades. It had the largest monolithic primary mirror in the ...

, and for the MACAO system of the

European Southern Observatory The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 m ...

. Roddier retired in December 2000 and returned to live in France. During his retirement, he became interested in thermodynamic aspects of evolution. François Roddier died on 19 August 2023, at the age of 86.Monsieur François Roddier

Publications

Books

* ''The Thermodynamics of Evolution'', trans. Stephen Ridgway, Parole éditions, 2020 * ''De la thermodynamique à l'économie. Le tourbillon de la vie'', Parole éditions, 2018 * ''Thermodynamique de l'évolution. Un essai de thermo-bio-sociologie'', Parole éditions, 2012 * ''Le pain, le levain et les gènes. Un essai sur l'évolution'', Parole éditions, 2009 * 'Adaptive Optics in Astronomy' (in collaboration with ten other authors), ''Cambridge University Press'', 1999 * ''Distributions et Transformation de Fourier'', Ediscience (1971, 1978), McGraw Hill (1984, 1988, 1993).

Articles

* The Effects of Atmospheric Turbulence in Optical Astronomy, Progress in Optics, Vol. 19,
Scientific Articles (NASA/ADS database)

Honors and awards

* 1965 – Houlevigue Prize from

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

* 1978 – Deslandres Prize from the French Academy of Sciences * 1991 – Fellow member, American Optical Society * 1992 – Médaille de l'ADION,

Nice Observatory The Nice Observatory () is an astronomical observatory located in Nice, France on the summit of Mount Gros. The observatory was founded in 1879, by the banker Raphaël Bischoffsheim. The architect was Charles Garnier (architect), Charles Garnier, ...

* 1993 –

Prix Jules Janssen The Prix Jules Janssen is the highest award of the Société astronomique de France (SAF), the French astronomical society. This annual prize is given to a professional French astronomer or to an astronomer of another nationality in recognition ...

from the

Société astronomique de France The Société astronomique de France (SAF; ), the France, French astronomical society, is a non-profit association in the public interest organized under French law (Association loi de 1901). Founded by astronomer Camille Flammarion in 1887, its ...

* 1996 – André Lallemand prize from the French Academy of Sciences * 2000 – ''Board of Regents Medal of Excellence in Research'',

* 2002 – Maria and Eric Muhlmann Prize from the

Astronomical Society of the Pacific The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) is an American scientific and educational organization, founded in San Francisco on February 7, 1889, immediately following the solar eclipse of January 1, 1889. Its name derives from its origins on ...

References

External links

Personal Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roddier, François 1936 births 2023 deaths Academic staff of Côte d'Azur University École Normale Supérieure alumni 20th-century French astronomers 20th-century French physicists Scientists from Paris