Georges Bruhat (21 December 18871 January 1945In the dedication by

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (; 29 December 1923 – 11 February 2025) was a French mathematician and physicist. She made seminal contributions to the study of general relativity, by showing that the Einstein field equations can be put into the form of ...

: The date is given as 31 December 1944 in ) was a French physicist.

Life and academic career

Bruhat studied physics from 1906 until 1909 at the École normale supérieure of Paris (ENS), with, among other,

Henri Abraham Henri Abraham (12 July 1868–22 December 1943) was a French physicist who made important contributions to the science of radio waves. He performed some of the first measurements of the propagation velocity of radio waves, helped develop France's ...

Marcel Brillouin Louis Marcel Brillouin (; 19 December 1854 – 16 June 1948) was a French physicist and mathematician. He carried research in many realms of physics, including fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, geophysics, quantum mechan ...

and

Aimé Cotton Aimé Auguste Cotton (9 October 1869 – 16 April 1951) was a French physicist known for his studies of the interaction of light with chiral molecules. In the absorption bands of these molecules, he discovered large values of optical rotato ...

, and at the Sorbonne, among others with

Gabriel Lippmann Gabriel Lippmann ( ; 16 August 1845 – 12 July 1921) was a French physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908 "for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference". Early life and educa ...

and Edmond Bouty. After being awarded a first degree in mathematics and physics, he taught for a year at Gymnasium and afterwards was an assistant at the École normale supérieure of Paris, which gave him time to prepare his PhD thesis with Aimé Cotton in

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

, which he defended in 1914 before the start of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. During the war he was involved with the development of devices for detection via sound, for which he received the

Croix de Guerre The (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awarded during World ...

. Starting in 1919 he became a professor at

University of Lille The University of Lille (, abbreviated as ULille, UDL or univ-lille) is a French public research university based in Lille, Hauts-de-France. It has its origins in the University of Douai (1559), and resulted from the merger of three universities ...

and then in 1927 at the Faculté des sciences in Paris, assigned to ENS. In 1935 he became acting director and in 1941–42 Director of ENS. In 1940 he succeeded Eugene Bloch who had been removed by the

Vichy Regime Vichy France (; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was a French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, established as a result of the French capitulation after the defeat against ...

's antisemitic laws. In 1944 he was arrested by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

since he was unwilling to collaborate in locating a student member of the

French resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

at the school. On 16 August 1944, he was deported to

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Nazi Germany, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (pre-1938 ...

and died on 1 January 1945 in Sachsenhausen of a lung infection. Georges Bruhat performed research in optics (for instance optically active media, double refraction, wavelength dependencies of absorption and refractive index) and was known in France for his four-volume physics texts (''Cours de physique générale'', Masson). The volume on electricity appeared in 1924 (8. Edition 1963), that on thermodynamics in 1926 (6. Edition 1968 revised by

Alfred Kastler Alfred Kastler (; 3 May 1902 – 7 January 1984) was a German-born French physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics. He is known for the development of optical pumping. Biography Kastler was born in Guebwiller (Alsace, at the time part of the Germ ...

), the volume on optics in 1930 (6. Edition 1968, revised by Kastler), and that on mechanics in 1934 (6. Edition, 1967). A monograph on polarisation was published in 1930 (Traité de la Polarimétrie). He is the father of mathematician François Bruhat and mathematical physicist

. The

Three Physicists Prize The Three Physicists Prize (, ) is a physics prize awarded by the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris and the Eugène Bloch Foundation. It is named in honour of the physicists Henri Abraham, Eugene Bloch and Georges Bruhat, who were succes ...

(Prix des trois physiciens) was founded in 1951 to honor Georges Bruhat along with Eugene Bloch and Henri Abraham.

Publications

* Georges Bruhat; ''Cours de physique générale''. Le cours comporte les quatre volumes suivants : ** ''Électricité'', Masson (8th édition-1963), 912 pp; revue par G. Goudet. ** ''Thermodynamique'', Masson (6th édition-1968), 912 p. 6th édition revue et augmentée par

, prix Nobel de physique 1966. ** ''Optique'', Masson (6th édition-1965), 1026 p. revue et augmentée par

. Rééditée par Dunod (2004) : . ** ''Mécanique'', Masson (6th édition-1967), 726 p. d'après son cours donné à l'École normale supérieure de jeunes filles, revue par A. Foch. * ''Traité de Polarimétrie'', éditions de la Revue d'Optique, 1930. * ''Le Soleil'', librairie Félix Alcan, Nouvelle collection scientifique, 1931. * ''Les Etoiles'', librairie Félix Alcan, Nouvelle collection scientifique, 1939.
Books listed at Worldcat

Literature

* ''Les trois physiciens Henri Abraham, Eugène Bloch, Georges Bruhat'', Éditions ENS Rue d'Ulm, 2009.

References

French mathematical physicists École Normale Supérieure alumni 20th-century French mathematicians 20th-century French physicists French people who died in Nazi concentration camps 1887 births 1945 deaths People who died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp Bruhat family