Klein, Étienne 1958-

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KLEIN, Étienne 1958-

PERSONAL:

Born 1958. Education: Earned degree of docteur en philosophie des sciences.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique, 31/33 rue de la Fédération, 75752 Paris, Cedex 15, France.

CAREER:

Physicist. Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, Paris, France, assistant director of material science; École Centrale de Paris, professor of quantum and particle physics and of the philosophy of science.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Prix Jean Perrin, Société Française de Physique, 1997.

WRITINGS:

Conversations avec le sphinx, Albin Michel (Paris, France), 1991, translation by David Le Vay published as Conversations with the Sphinx: Paradoxes in Physics, Souvenir Press (London, England), 1996.

(With Bernard d'Espagnat) Regards sur la matière: des quanta et des choses, Fayard (Paris, France), 1993.

(Editor, with Michel Spiro) Le temps et sa flèche, Editions Frontières (Luisant, France), 1994.

(With Marc Lachièze-Rey) La quête de lunité: l'aventure de la physique, Albin Michel (Paris, France), 1996, translation by Axel Reisinger published as The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

(With Marie de Solemne, André Comte-Sponville, and Jean-Yves Leloup) Aimer désespérément, Dervy (Paris, France), 1998.

L'atome au pied du mur, Pommier (Paris, France), 2000.

L'unité de la physique, Presses Universitaires de France (Paris, France), 2000.

(With Bernard Bonin and Jean-Marc Cavedon) Moi, U 235, atome radioactif, Flammarion (Paris, France), 2001.

Les tactiques de chronos, Flammarion (Paris, France), 2003.

Columnist for magazine La Recherche (France).

SIDELIGHTS:

French physicist Étienne Klein has written numerous books about his specialties, particle and quantum physics, but only a few of them have been translated into English. The most notable of his works available to English readers are Conversations with the Sphinx: Paradoxes in Physics and The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics.

Mark Buchanan, who reviewed Conversations with the Sphinx for Nature, stated that it begins with a "well-written, carefully conceived essay" that argues that the discovery of paradoxes is a crucial means by which scientific discovery moves forward. This essay, which draws on theories introduced by philosophers such as nineteenth-century European theorists Friedrich Nietzsche and SØren Kierkegaard, is suffused with "a rich sense of philosophy and literature," noted School Library Journal reviewer Ted R. Spickler. The second half of the book consists of brief summaries of seven paradoxes present in modern physics, including the wave-particle duality. "Both lay and professional readers will gain valuable insights from" Conversations with the Sphinx, A. M. Saperstein commented in Choice.

The Quest for Unity expresses the desire present in scientists to find a single, coherent set of rules or equations to explain all of the phenomena that occurs in the universe. The areas in which modern physics has managed to find unity, including classical and quantum mechanics and relativity theory, are "expertly surveyed" by Klein and his coauthor, Marc Lachièze-Rey, T. Eastman declared in Choice.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, September, 1997, A. M. Saperstein, review of Conversations with the Sphinx: Paradoxes in Physics, p. 170; November, 1999, T. Eastman, review of The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics, p. 562.

Nature, November 28, 1996, Mark Buchanan, review of Conversations with the Sphinx, p. 325.

Publishers Weekly, April 19, 1999, review of The Quest for Unity, p. 52.

School Library Journal, September, 1997, Ted R. Spickler, review of Conversations with the Sphinx, p. 168.