Jean Baptiste Perrin was born on 30 September 1870 inLille, France. He attended theÉcole normale supérieure, where he was an assistant from 1894 to 1897. In 1897, he received hisD.Sc. from theSorbonne for a thesis oncathode rays andX-rays. In the same year, he was appointed a lecturer inphysical chemistry at the Sorbonne, and in 1910 became a professor.
In 1901, Perrin proposed a hypothesis that eachatom has a positively chargednucleus, similarly toHantaro Nagaoka later, but never developed it further.[4] It came to be known theRutherford model.
By the mid-1900s, Perrin was interested instatistical mechanics questions, which are close to the study ofBrownian motion.[5] FollowingAlbert Einstein's publication (1905) of a theoretical explanation of Brownian motion in terms of atoms, Perrin (along with Joseph Ulysses Chaudesaigues who was working in Perrin's lab) did the experimental work to test and verify Einstein's predictions, thereby providing data that would settle the century-long dispute aboutJohn Dalton'satomic theory, before the end of the decade.[6][7][5]Carl Benedicks argued Perrin should receive theNobel Prize in Physics; Perrin received the prize in 1926 for this and other work on the discontinuous structure of matter, which put a definite end to thelong struggle regarding the question of the physical reality of molecules.[8]
Perrin was the author of a number of books and dissertations. Most notable of his publications were: "Rayons cathodiques et rayons X"; "Les Principes"; "Electrisation de contact"; "Réalité moléculaire"; "Matière et Lumière"; "Lumière et Reaction chimique".
Perrin was also the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Joule Prize of the Royal Society in 1896 and the La Caze Prize of theFrench Academy of Sciences. He was twice appointed a member of theSolvay Committee at Brussels in 1911 and in 1921. He also held memberships with theRoyal Society of London and with the Academies of Sciences of Belgium, Sweden, Turin, Prague, Romania and China. He became a Commander of theLegion of Honour in 1926 and was made Commander of theOrder of Léopold (Belgium).
In 1919, Perrin proposed thatnuclear reactions can provide the source of energy in stars. He realized that the mass of a helium atom is less than that of four atoms of hydrogen, and that themass-energy equivalence of Einstein implies that the nuclear fusion (4 H → He) could liberate sufficient energy to make stars shine for billions of years.[9] A similar theory was first proposed by American chemistWilliam Draper Harkins in 1915.[10][11] It remained forHans Bethe andCarl Friedrich von Weizsäcker to determine the detailed mechanism ofstellar nucleosynthesis during the 1930s.[12]
Perrin is considered the founding father of the National Centre for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)). Following a petition by Perrin signed by over 80 scientists, among them eight Nobel Prize laureates, the French education minister set up the Conseil Supérieur de la Recherche Scientifique (French National Research Council) in April 1933. In 1936, Perrin, now an undersecretary for research, founded the Service Central de la Recherche Scientifique (French Central Agency for Scientific Research).[13] Both institutions were merged under the CNRS umbrella on 19 October 1939.[14]
In 1897, Perrin married Henriette Duportal (1869–1938), with whom he had a son,Francis, who later became a physicist.[17]
After Henriette's death in 1938,Nine Choucroun became Perrin's partner. In June 1940, when the Germans invaded France, he and Choucroun escaped toCasablanca on theocean linerMassilia, with part of the French government. In December 1941, they boarded theSS Excambion toNew York City, arriving on 23 December.[18]
^Diane Dosso, " Le plan de sauvetage des scientifiques français, New York, 1940–1942 ",Revue de synthèse, Vol. 127, Nr. 2, octobre 2006, pp. 429–451(in French)
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