Globe Lecture: "De découverte en découverte et de fil en aiguille : 100 ans d’étude du noyau atomique"

Tuesday, 4 October 2011 at 8:30 pm - This lecture recounts, step by step, discovery by discovery, the past 100 years of study of the nucleus.

2011 marks the 100th anniversary of Rutherford's discovery of the atomic nucleus. We are also celebrating the centenary of the award of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Marie Curie. These two events are intimately linked and mark the early years of a science that was to revolutionise physics and change the course of history. To achieve what they achieved, a good measure of luck was needed but, above all, hard work and genius. A tidal wave of technological innovations and conceptual revolutions from around 1911 gave birth to quantum mechanics and subsequently led to the discovery of the neutron, antimatter, artificial radioactivity and fission. Since the Second World War, discoveries have continued apace and the nucleus has been revealed in all its magical, deformed, rotating, and exotic glory.

But even at the end of the 20th century, the nucleus had not yet yielded all its secrets!

Araceli Lopez-Martens est chercheuse au Centre de Spectrométrie Nucléaire et de Spectrométrie de Masse de l’Université Paris Sud à Orsay, dans le groupe Structure du Noyau. A côté de son travail de recherche, elle participe à de nombreuses activités de vulgarisation scientifique comme les conférences NEPAL (Noyaux et Particules Au Lycée).

Around the time of the lecture, the "Femmes et science" collection of drawings by Fiami will be on display in the Microcosm. 

by Globe Info