Philippe Meyer 1925–2007
A prominent figure of French theoretical physics, Philippe Meyer, passed away on 9 November 2007.
Meyer was born in Paris on 22 April 1925. However, at the beginning of the Second World War, his father, the banker André Meyer, left for the US. Philippe was admitted to Harvard in 1941, at the age of 16, but in 1943 he interrupted his studies, went back to Europe and joined the Free French Forces. He was part of the army that landed in Provence and fought for the liberation of France. He was very discreet and never mentioned that he was decorated with the Croix de Guerre (avec Médaille Vermeil) for his war service.
Meyer returned to Harvard in 1945, obtaining a BS in 1946 and an MS in Physics in 1947. The following year, he returned to France with his wife and entered CNRS. There were no organized graduate studies in France in those days, and young scientists had to learn modern physics by themselves. He joined the Theoretical Physics Laboratory at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in 1953, which had been founded a year earlier by Maurice Lévy. Meyer worked on theoretical nuclear physics and obtained his Doctorat d'État in 1955 with a study of "Exchange Currents in Deuteron Photodisintegration". He continued work on nuclear physics and published a series of papers on the scattering of fast nucleons on light nuclei. In 1957, he moved to CERN and started working on particle physics, collaborating mainly with Jacques Prentki and Yoshio Yamaguchi on the properties of strange particles. He refused an offer to become a staff member in the TH Division and returned to France where, in 1960, he opted for a faculty position – first at the University of Bordeaux and a year later at the University of Paris at Orsay, where in 1959 the entire theory group from ENS, led by Lévy, had founded a new laboratory.
Together with Claude Bouchiat, Meyer established a very active research group which attracted many young physicists, some of whom became well known theorists and played an important role in building a French school of theoretical physics. The subjects studied included current algebras and K-decays, higher symmetries, dual models, deep inelastic scattering and the parton model, as well as the establishment of the Standard Model. The paper on the anomaly cancellation mechanism among leptons and coloured quarks is a milestone in this field. Meyer directed the Orsay laboratory from 1966 to 1969 after Lévy's departure for Paris. In 1974, he and Bouchiat were invited by Jean Brossel, director of the physics department of ENS, to establish a new laboratory of theoretical physics, which remains a great international success.
Meyer never sought positions in the ministry or government. The only exception was a brief period after May 1968 when he became an advisor to Edgar Faure, minister of education. He was at the origin of the law allowing foreigners to become professors in French universities, eliminating a very retrograde French rule.
He was a gifted and dedicated teacher, and a remarkable lab director. Under his leadership, the School of Graduate Studies in the Paris area, which was initially restricted to high-energy physics, expanded to cover many areas of fundamental physics. Generations of young physicists owe their solid education to his broad and modern views. Occasionally, he helped some of them financially, although he never let them know. He always had a vision of the international role of science and took various initiatives in this direction, many of which survive to the present day. In particular, a yearly Summer Institute gathered the stars of theoretical physics from around the world to Paris every August, and the "Triangular Meetings" initially between the Universities of Paris, Rome and Utrecht, have now become a regular international conference series.
Meyer also patronized art museums in France, following the example of his father who made gifts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He helped to buy masterpieces that are now in several museums – in particular the Musée d'Orsay – and donated an entire collection a few years ago. His naturally reserved character did not allow for his name to appear anywhere, and it is only now, after his death, that the Musée d'Orsay plans a special exhibit under his name.
Those of us who knew Meyer well, will remember his natural elegance, charm, and warm and friendly behaviour. His vast cultural good taste in literature, art and music, made him an outstanding person. We are sorry that he left us, but he will not be forgotten
His friends at CERN and École Normale Superieure.