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Press release
Death of Pierre Jacquinot, former Director-General of the CNRS, and CNRS Gold Medal Winner in 1978 | |||
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Paris, September 25, 2002 |
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| Pierre Jacquinot, former Director-General of the CNRS, from 1962 to 1969, died during the night of September 21 to 22, 2002. He was one of the most eminent French specialists in atomic physics. Born on January 18, 1910, at age 23 Pierre Jacquinot, agrégé in physical sciences, joined the French national research structure which was to become the CNRS in 1939. He worked there until 1942, when he was appointed Professor at the University of Clermont-Ferrand. He then became a Professor at the University of Paris in 1946. As of 1933, he began work at the Bellevue large electromagnet laboratory founded and directed by Aimé Cotton. He continued his scientific career there as a specialist in atomic and instrumental spectroscopy. In 1951, he became director of the laboratory which became the Laboratoire Aimé Cotton after its founder died. Together with his student Pierre Connes, he designed and produced the Fourier transform spectrometer, initially intended for probing atoms in depth. That instrument has since achieved renown in a very large number of areas of physics, and in particular space. Satellites equipped with it can determine the characteristics of the atoms, molecules, and ions in the interstellar medium, and in the atmospheric environment. In 1962, he was appointed Director-General of the CNRS, a position he was to hold until 1969. During that period, he worked to achieve rapprochement between the CNRS and Universities, and set up the first associated laboratories. He also created the post of Scientific Director. He then returned to the Aimé Cotton Laboratory in 1969, and remained there as Director until 1978, while simultaneously working as a Professor at the Université Paris XI. His research work was devoted to very high definition laser spectroscopy. In particular, he showed the resonance line of the francium atom at CERN. An exceptional physicist, Pierre Jacquinot was awarded the CNRS Gold Medal in 1978. He was President of the Académie des Sciences and President of the French Physics Society (Société Française de Physique). Mathematics
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