Description du sujet de thèse

Long-term evolution of physics research in France: the example of the Aimé Cotton Laboratory. Over and above its intrinsic interest, and the opportunity to observe the evolution of its scientific themes, the long-term history of the Aimé Cotton laboratory raises numerous questions concerning the structuring of the research landscape on a much broader, national and even international scale: how were the first major scientific instruments of the 20th century (Aimé Cotton's very large electromagnet) designed, financed and pooled, and how are our current research infrastructures in many respects their heirs? How did they lead to the establishment of original partnerships, with research foundations and with the general public - again, in a pioneering way in terms of the most recent thinking? How did one of the very first CNRS laboratories come to be structured, and how did it participate along the way in the major evolutions of the ESR? The Aimé Cotton laboratory is, among other things, the unit that launched the CNRS project in the mid-1960s, the forerunners of our UMRs.
Changes in funding methods, the structuring of research units (UMRs), the pooling of resources and the specialization of research support professions have all had an impact on the implementation of experiments on scientific premises (size and equipment of experimental rooms, creation of instrumentation and experimental platforms), the scientific instrumentation deployed for these experiments (complexity of devices developed on site, or ordered and built externally), the sharing of staff missions on a given set-up,.... In short, the history of the LAC throughout the 20th century is not just the history of physics: it is of interest to the entire community of formal and natural sciences, as well as the humanities and social sciences. Through the archives stored at the laboratory, but also in other identified locations (Ecole Normale Supérieure, CNRS), the project will examine all these aspects, while contributing to the enhancement of LAC's scientific heritage, at a time when the laboratory has just benefited from the complete renovation of its historic building on the Orsay campus.

Contexte de travail

This is an interdisciplinary doctoral project under the CNRS 80 PRIME program, jointly supervised by the Aimé Cotton Laboratory (Orsay, Université Paris-Saclay, a molecular and optical atomic physics laboratory headed by Dr. Olivier Dulieu and comprising 28 permanent staff) and the Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, through the Comité pour l'Histoire du CNRS, chaired by Professor Héléne Harter.

Le poste se situe dans un secteur relevant de la protection du potentiel scientifique et technique (PPST), et nécessite donc, conformément à la réglementation, que votre arrivée soit autorisée par l'autorité compétente du MESR.

Contraintes et risques

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Informations complémentaires

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