Marcel Brillouin

Louis Marcel Brillouin ( born December 19, 1854 at Melle ( Deux -Sèvres ), † June 16, 1948 in Paris) was a French physicist.

Life and work

Shortly after the birth of Marcel Brillouin his family moved to Paris, where he later attended the Lycée Condorcet. During the Franco-German war the family then fled back to Melle. After the war he attended the École Normale Supérieure from 1874 to 1878 and was then physics assistant at the Collège de France, where he also received his doctorate in 1881. He then spent several years with the organization of state exam tests for mathematicians ( concours d' agrégation ) at various locations occupied (Nancy 1880-1882, Dijon, Toulouse), before returning in 1888 to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. From 1900 to 1931 he was Professor of Mathematical Physics at the Collège de France. In 1921 he was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences. He was a participant on the first four Solvay conferences in Brussels.

His son was the physicist Léon Brillouin.

Among his pupils was Jean Coulomb.