Jules Horowitz, a French physicist, was born on the 3rd of October 1921 in

Rzeszów Rzeszów ( , ) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów is the capital of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship and the county seat, seat of Rzeszów C ...

in Poland and died on the 3rd of August 1995 in the

7th arrondissement of Paris The 7th arrondissement of Paris (''VIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of the capital city of France. It is known for being, along with the 16th arrondissement and the ''commune'' of Neuilly-sur-Sein ...

. The

Jules Horowitz Reactor The Jules Horowitz Reactor (, ''RJH'') is a materials testing reactor (MTR) cooled and moderated with water. It is under construction at Cadarache in southern France, based on the recommendations of the European Roadmap for Research Infrastructure ...

is named after him.

Biography

Jules Horowitz was born to a Polish Jewish family. His parents, most likely in order to seek refuge for their children and themselves from the

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

in strongly catholic

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, emigrated to

Weimar Germany The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

. However, some years later they resumed their exodus westwards to escape the

National Socialist Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was frequen ...

regime, ending up at

Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...

. They then moved once again to avoid living under the Nazi regime occupying France, leaving La Lorraine for the

Zone Libre The ''zone libre'' (, ''free zone'') was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered b ...

. In 1941, Horowitz passed the entrance exam for L'Ecole Polytechnique. The school had, since June 1940, abandoned its former location on La Rue Descartes in Paris to move to Lyon and the Zone Libre, losing its military status. When the school returned to Paris in April 1943 after the invasion of the Zone Libre by the Germans in November 1942, Horowitz probably stayed in the south like his fellow students (denoted "bis" by the administration), having been naturalised at least 8 years earlier and being of Jewish faith. A great contributor to

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies th ...

through his work at the heart of 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 sec ...

(CEA), he acted as director of the Department for Atomic Piles for the construction of the Zoé reactor (the first French atomic reactor). He applied his common sense to identify the deception in the

Great Oil Sniffer Hoax The Great Oil Sniffer Hoax was a 1979 scandal involving French oil company Elf Aquitaine. The company spent millions of dollars developing a new gravity wave-based oil detection system, which was later revealed to be a scam. Elf lost over $15 ...

. He was, in 1975, the creator and first director of the Institute of Fundamental Physics research at CEA, renamed Material Science Research, and today called La Direction de la recherche fondamentale (DRF). Instigator of the Laue-Langevin Institute i the early 1960s, he was also president of the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

at the

European Synchrotron Radiation Facility The European Synchrotron (ESRF) is a joint research facility situated in Grenoble, France, supported by 19 countries (13 member countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switz ...

during its creation (1988 to 1993). He was presented as one of the major actors behind the Israeli nuclear programme. He was furthermore the brother-in-law of the French physicist

Claude Bloch Claude Bloch (18 March 1923 – 29 December 1971) was a French theoretical nuclear physicist. He authored over 60 published articles and made significant impact on the fields of quantum field theory, nuclear physics, and the many-body problem. Bl ...

. 1921 births 1995 deaths École Polytechnique alumni Commanders of the Legion of Honour French physicists Polish Jews {{France-physicist-stub