ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

“Those Who “Don’t Know Constellations”: Building Astrophysics in France (1940s-1960s)

• In Event: Building Disciplines

English Abstract

In a 1987 interview, French astrophysicist Evry Schatzman described the way people like him were viewed at the beginning of his career: they were those “who don’t know constellations”, usually not considered as real astronomers. This conveys the identity distinction that was made between traditional astronomy and new astrophysics in the French institutional and academical field. In 1954, the Sorbonne University created the first French program devoted to astrophysics. The first chair dates back to 1961 and the first academic degree appeared in 1964. However, there already were a national "Service d'Astrophysique", created in 1936, inherited by the French CNRS: French Astrophysics had its own institute (in Paris), its own observatory (in Haute-Provence) and its own journal (the Annales d’Astrophysique), structuring an embryonic scientific community, but mainly outside the university. These young institutions aimed at promoting this science as a new scientific approach to study the Universe, as a new technic, even as a new discipline. Was it a small rebel group defying the old Observatoire de Paris? A scientific trend imported from the Anglo-Saxon world? A refreshing alternative to classical astronomy? Or a new label to attract funding? In France, in the context of the birth of Big Science and science policies, of Physics dominion, of university massification and of academical specialization, what was Astrophysics? Based on several individual experiences, my point here is to study what is being an astrophysicist in France in the 1940s-1960s, and to understand how to begin an academic career in a discipline that doesn't exist yet.

Author

• Véronique Gillier, ENS de Lyon