Georges Charpak
Born	(1924-08-01)1 August 1924 Dąbrowica, Poland (now Dubrovytsia, Ukraine)
Died	29 September 2010(2010-09-29) (aged 86) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Fields	Physics
Known for	Multiwire proportional chamber
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physics, 1992

Georges Charpak (1 August ^[1] 1924 – 29 September 2010) was a French physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992.^[2]

Life[link]

Georges Charpak was born to Jewish family in the village of Dąbrowica in Poland (now Dubrovytsia, Ukraine). Charpak's family moved from Poland to Paris when he was seven years old, beginning his maths study in 1941 at the Lycée Saint Louis.^[3] During World War II Charpak served in the resistance and was imprisoned by Vichy authorities in 1943. In 1944 he was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, where he remained until the camp was liberated in 1945. After classes préparatoires studies at Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris and later at Lycée Joffre in Montpellier,^[4] he joined in 1945 the Paris based École des Mines, one of the most prestigious engineering schools in France. The following year he became a naturalized French citizen. He graduated in 1948, earning the French degree of Civil Engineer of Mines (equivalent to a Master's degree) becoming a pupil in the laboratory of Frédéric Joliot-Curie at the Collège de France during 1949,^[3][5] the year after Curie had directed construction of the first atomic pile within France.^[6] While at the Collège, Charpak secured a research position ^[3] for the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He received his PhD in 1954 ^[7] from Nuclear Physics at the Collège de France, receiving the qualification after having written a thesis on the subject of very low radiation due to disintegration of nuclei (Charpak & Suzor).^[3][8][9] In 1959, he joined the staff of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva. This is where he invented, and developed,^[10][11] the multiwire proportional chamber. The chamber was patented and that quickly superseded the old bubble chambers, allowing for better data processing. This new creation had been made public during 1968.^[12] Charpak was later to become a joint inventor with Ngoc and Policarpo of the scintillation drift chamber during the latter parts of the 1970s.^[13] He eventually retired from CERN in 1991.In 1980, Georges Charpak became professor-in-residence at École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles in Paris (ESPCI) and held the Joliot-Curie Chair there in 1984. This is where he developed and demonstrated the powerful applications of the particle detectors he invented, most notably for enabling better health diagnostics. He was the co-founder of a number of start-up in the biomedical arena, including Molecular Engines Laboratories, Biospace Instruments and SuperSonic Imagine – together with Mathias Fink.He was elected to the French Academy of Sciences on 20 May 1985. Georges Charpak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992 "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber", with affiliations to both École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles (ESPCI) and CERN. This was the last time a single person was awarded the physics prize.^{[citation needed]}In March, 2001 Charpak received Honorary degree Ph.D from University of the Andes, Colombia in Bogotá.^[14]

In France, Charpak was a very strong advocate for nuclear power. Prof. Charpak was a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.^[15]

Publications[link]

Books[link]

• La vie à fil tendu, co-authored with Dominique Saudinos (1993 Odile Jacob, ISBN 2-7381-0214-X)
• Devenez sorciers, devenez savants, co-authored with Henri Broch (Odile Jacob, ISBN 90-5814-005-9). Published in English as "Debunked!" by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Technical Reports[link]

• Charpak, G. & M. Gourdin. "The K{sup 0}anti K{sup 0} System", European Organization for Nuclear Research, Paris University, (July 11, 1967).
• Charpak, G. "Evolution of Some Particle Detectors Based On the Discharge in Gases", European Organization for Nuclear Research, (November 19, 1969).
• Charpak, G. & F. Sauli, "High Accuracy, Two-Dimensional Read-Out in Multiwire Proportional Chambers", European Organization for Nuclear Research, (February 14, 1973).
• Charpak, G.; Jeavons, A.; Sauli, F. & R. Stubbs, "High-Accuracy Measurements of the Centre of Gravity of Avalanches in Proportional Chambers", European Organization for Nuclear Research, (September 24, 1973).
• Crittenden, J.A.; Hsiung, Y.B. ; Kaplan, a.D.M. ; Hubbard, J.R. ; Mangeot, P. ; Peisert, A. ; Charpak, G. ; Sauli, F. ; Brown, C.N. ; Childress, S. ; and others. (1986). "Inclusive hadronic production cross sections measured in proton-nucleus collisions at. sqrt. s = 27. 4 GeV". Physical Review D 34 (9): 2584. Bibcode 1986PhRvD..34.2584C. DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.34.2584. OSTI 7244218. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Information from Official Nobel site
• Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
• Georges Charpak
• Georges Charpak U.S. Patents
• Ioannis Giomataris: Georges Charpak – a true men of science, CERN Courier

Xavier Darcos

Xavier Darcos (born 14 July 1947) is a French politician, scholar and civil servant currently serving as Minister of Labour.

An agrégé professor in literature and general inspector of the National Education system, he has been Mayor of Périgueux, a Senator, and a junior minister in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's governments.

Biography[link]

Darcos was born on 14 July 1947 in Limoges to Jean-Gabriel Darcos and Anne-Marie Banvillet.

After getting a PhD in Latin studies from the University of Bordeaux and becoming a professor emeritus in letters and social sciences, he started teaching in 1968, first in Périgueux, then in a Bordeaux khâgne from 1982 to 1987, and finally at the lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris from 1987 to 1992.

In 1989 he became deputy to the Mayor of Périgueux. Three years later, he became a senior school inspector.

From 1993 to 1995 he was the chief of staff (directeur de cabinet) to Education Minister François Bayrou, from 1995 to 1997 advisor to Prime Minister Alain Juppé for education and culture matters, and from 1995 to 1998, along with François Bayroux and Claude Allègre, he was the president of school inspectors. From 1996 to 1999 he was also a Professor in comparative literature at the Paris IV University.

In 1997 he became Mayor of Périgueux, and was reelected both in 2001 and 2005. He was also elected Senator of Dordogne in 1998.

In May 2002, he became Minister for School Education in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's cabinet, then on 1 April 2004 Minister for Cooperation, Development and Francophony.

He has been a member of the Aquitaine Regional Council since 2004. On 15 June 2005 he became a French ambassador for the OCDE.

Since 18 May 2007, he has been the Minister of National Education in François Fillon’s governments. In March 2008, he failed to be reelected as Mayor of Périgueux.

In 2009, he condemned as "criminal" statements made by Pope Benedict XVI which claimed that condoms promote AIDS, when in fact they help protect against it.^[1]

Political career[link]

Governmental functions

Minister of Labor, Social Affairs, Family, and Solidarity : 2009–2010.

Minister of National Education : 2007–2009.

Minister of School Education : 2002–2004.

Minister of Development, Cooperation and Francophony : 2004–2005.

Electoral mandates

Senate of France

Senator of Dordogne : 1998–2002 (Became minister in 2002).

Regional Council

Regional councillor of Aquitaine : Since 2004. Reelected in 2010.

Municipal Council

Mayor of Périgueux : 1997–2002 (Resignation) / 2005–2008. Reelected in 2001, 2005.

Deputy-mayor of Périgueux : 1989–1997 / 2002–2005. Reelected in 1995.

Municipal councillor of Périgueux : 1989–2008. Reelected in 1995, 2001.

Agglomeration community Council

President of the Agglomeration community of Périgueux : 2000–2001.

Member of the Agglomeration community of Périgueux : 2000–2001.

Awards and honours[link]

• Xavier Darcos entered the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in 2006.

Bibliography[link]

• Histoire de la littérature française, 1992
• Approches ovidiennes de la mort, 1995
• Mérimée, 1998
• Robert des grands écrivains de langue française, (with other writers)
• L'Art d'apprendre à ignorer, 2000
• Dictionnaire des mythes féminins, 2002 (with other writers)
• Lettre à tous ceux qui aiment l'école, 2003 (en coll.)
• Deux voix pour une école, 2004 (with other writers)
• L'École de Jules Ferry, 2005 (prix Louis Pauwels in 2006)
• L'État et les Églises, 1905–2005, 2005
• L'État et les Églises, la question laïque, 2006
• Tacite, ses vérités sont les nôtres, 2007

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Xavier Darcos

External links[link]

• Biography (French)
• Official blog (French)

v t e First Fillon Cabinet François Fillon Alain Juppé Bernard Kouchner Hervé Morin Michèle Alliot-Marie Brice Hortefeux Rachida Dati Jean-Louis Borloo Éric Wœrth Xavier Bertrand Christine Boutin Christine Lagarde Xavier Darcos Valérie Pécresse Christine Albanel Roselyne Bachelot

v t e Second Fillon Cabinet François Fillon François Baroin Alain Juppé Jean-Louis Borloo Michèle Alliot-Marie Bernard Kouchner Hervé Morin Brice Hortefeux Xavier Darcos Christine Lagarde Éric Wœrth Éric Besson Luc Chatel Bruno Le Maire Valérie Pécresse Frédéric Mitterrand Roselyne Bachelot Michel Mercier

References[link]

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2010)

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the French Wikipedia. (December 2008) Don't speak French? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the French article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|fr|Bernard Derosier}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Bernard Derosier (born Chevilly, Loiret, November 10, 1939) is a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Nord department,^[1] and is a member of the Socialiste, radical, citoyen et divers gauche.

References[link]

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the French Wikipedia.

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