École de physique des Houches

Summer, 1972, discussion in main lecture hall. From left, Yuval Ne'eman, Bryce DeWitt, Kip Thorne.

L’École de Physique des Houches (the Physics School of Les Houches) was founded in 1951 by a young French scientist, Cécile DeWitt-Morette.

Historically the first lessons were given in 1951 by Léon van Hove on quantum mechanics. The conditions were very spartan with the lessons lasting eight weeks in alpine chalets devoid of all comforts, a few kilometers from the village of Les Houches.

Soon, the school rapidly attracted the greatest names of modern physics. Such as Enrico Fermi, Wolfgang Pauli, Murray Gell-Mann and John Bardeen amongst others. The young students, then unknown, included such future scientists as Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, Georges Charpak, and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, all future winners of the Nobel prize for Physics, as well as mathematician Alain Connes, future winner of the Fields medal.

Summer school sessions

1990

July 1990 : quantum optics, non-linear optics and laser cooling

• • Director : Jean Zinn-Justin
  • Coorganisers of the school : Jean Dalibard and Jean-Michel Raimond

Teachers

• Rainer Blatt
• Christian Borde
• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (Nobel prize 1997)
• Daniel Delande
• Claude Fabre
• Serge Haroche (Nobel prize 2012)
• Philippe Jacquier
• H. Jeff Kimble
• Daniel Kleppner
• Luigi Lugiato
• William D. Phillips (Nobel prize 1997)
• Wolfgang Schleich
• Yuen-Ron Shen
• Jook Walraven
• H. Walther

Visitors

• Alain Aspect
• Philippe Grangier^[1]

Participants

• Charles Adams (physicist), Department of Physics and Applied Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland
• Michele Barsanti, Scuola Normala Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri, Pisa, Italy
• Craig Blockley, Department of Physics, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
• Massimo Brambilla (physicist), Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita di Milano, Milano, Italy
• Robert Brecha, Bridge Laboratory of Physics, Caltech, Pasadena, United States
• Michel Brune, Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Hertzienne, de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
• Patrice Cacciani, Laboratoire Aime Cotton, Orsay, France
• Pere Colet, Departament de Fisica, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
• Jean-Michel Courty, Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Hertzienne, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
• Job De Kleuver, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit Natuurkunde en Sterrenkunde, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• John M. Doyle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
• Artur Ekert, Wolfson College, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
• Christoph Gerz, Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Hertzienne, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
• Kurt Gibble, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder, United States
• Olivier Gorceix, Université Paris-Nord, Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Villetaneuse, France
• Jan Grochmaliki, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland
• Mike Hayden (physicist), Department Of Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• Daniel Hennequin Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Hertzienne, Université de Lille-Flandres-Artois, Villeneuve d'Asq, France
• Wenyue Hsu, Physics Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
• Bruno Huttner, Department of Physics, Technion, Haifa, Israel
• Michel Joffe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
• Ron Kroon (physicist), Natuurkundig Laboratorium, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Wofgang Lange, Universitat Muenchen, Germany
• Jom Luiten, Natuurkundig Laboratorium, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Paulo Maia Neto, Departamento de Fisica, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
• Monika (Ritsch-)Marte, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Austria
• Klaus Molmer, Institute of Physics, University of Arhus, Denmark
• Marcos Oria, Universite Paris-Nord, Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, France
• Nicolas Pettiaux, Université libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgique
• Olivier Pfister, Université Paris-Nord, Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, France
• Franco Prati, Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita di Milano, Italy
• Laurence Pruvost, Laboratoire Aime Cotton, France
• Georg Raithel, Universitat Munchen, Germany
• Helmut Ritsch, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Austria
• Jean-Francois Roch, Institut d'Optique, Universite Paris-Sud, France
• Vahid Sandoghdar, Yale Physics Department, United States
• Michale Schubert, Universitat Hamburg, Institut fur Experimentalphysik, Germany
• Erik Schumacher, Optical Sciences Center, University of Arizona, United States
• Klaus Sengstock, Insitut fur Angewandte Physik, Germany
• Brain Sheehy, Department of Physics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, United States
• Ingo Siemers, Universitat Hamburg, Institut fur experimentalphysik, Germany
• Robert Spreuuw, Huygens Laboratorium, The Netherlands
• Andrew Steane, Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford, Grande Bretagne
• Uwe Steer, Insitut fur Angewandte Physik, Germany
• Kalle-Antti Suominen, Université d'Helsinki, Research Institute for Theoretical Physics, Finland
• Krysztof Szymaniec, Instytut Fizyki, Poland
• Guglielmo Tino, Dipatimento de Scienze Fisiche, Universita di Napoli, Italy
• Steve van Enck, Fysisch Laboratorium, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
• Suzanne Yoakum, Department of Physics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, United States

1954

Teachers

• Freeman Dyson

1951

• • Directeurs :
  • Corganisateurs de l'école :
  • Enseignants :
  • Participants :
    • Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

References

External links

• École de Physique des Houches web site

Coordinates: 45°53′56″N 6°46′12″E / 45.8989°N 6.7701°E / 45.8989; 6.7701