Laurent Nottale

Laurent Nottale (born 29 July 1952) is an astrophysicist, a retired director of research at CNRS, and a researcher at the Paris Observatory. He is the author and inventor of the theory of scale relativity, which aims to unify quantum physics and relativity theory.

Laurent Nottale
Nottale in 2009
Born(1952-07-29)July 29, 1952
Known forGravitational Lens, Scale relativity
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsCNRS, Paris observatory

Scientific career

Nottale began his professional work in the domain of general relativity. He defended his PhD Thesis in June 1980, entitled "Perturbation of the Hubble relation by clusters of galaxies", in which he showed that clusters of galaxies as a whole may act as gravitational lenses on distant sources.[1] Some of these results were reported in Nature.[2][3]

He also published a popular book L'Univers et la Lumière, Flammarion, Nouvelle Bibliothèque Scientifique 1994, Champs 1998) for which he received a prize in 1995 (Prix du livre d'Astronomie Haute-Maurienne-Vanoise).

According to Vincent Bontems and Yves Gingras there are two distinct phases in Nottale's scientific career.[4] From 1975 to 1991 this included conventional topics, such as gravitational lenses, while from 1984 onwards he focused on developing his theory of scale relativity, a proposal for a theory of physics based on fractal space-time.

Nottale and scale relativity theory

Scale relativity claims to extend the concept of relativity to physical scales (of time, length, energy, or momentum).[5] Proponents have made wide-ranging claims on its behalf, including applications to the existence of dark matter and the formation of planetary systems, as well as to biology, geology, and the technological singularity.[6][7] Nottale, himself, did not study technological singularities. The proposal has not attracted wide acceptance by the scientific community.[8]

Selected publications
  • Scale Relativity And Fractal Space-Time: A New Approach to Unifying Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. 2011 1st ed. World Scientific Publishing Company. (ISBN 1848166508)
  • Fractal Space-Time and Micro-physics, Editions World Scientific, May 1993 (ISBN 9810208782) (The reference book about Scale Relativity theory).
  • L'univers et la lumière, Cosmologie classique et mirages gravitationnels, Éditions Flammarion, août 1993 (ISBN 2082111830)
  • La Relativité dans tous ses états : du mouvements aux changements d'échelle, Éditions Hachette, 1998 (ISBN 201279002X)
  • Les arbres de l'évolution, Laurent Nottale, Jean Chaline et Pierre Grou, Éditions Hachette, mars 2000 (ISBN 2012355528)

See also

References
  1. in French: "Les lentilles gravitationnelles par amas de galaxies"
  2. Karoji, H.; Nottale, L. (1976). "Possible implications of the Rubin-Ford effect". Nature. 259 (5538): 31–33. Bibcode:1976Natur.259...31K. doi:10.1038/259031a0.
  3. Nottale, L.; Vigier, J. P. (1977). "Continuous increase of Hubble modulus behind clusters of galaxies". Nature. 268 (5621): 608–610. Bibcode:1977Natur.268..608N. doi:10.1038/268608a0.
  4. Bontems, Vincent; Gingras, Yves (2007). "De la science normale à la science marginale. Analyse d'une bifurcation de trajectoire scientifique: le cas de la Théorie de la Relativité d'Echelle" (PDF). Information sur les Sciences Sociales. 46 (4): 607–653. doi:10.1177/0539018407082595.
  5. Nottale, L. (1989). "Fractals and the Quantum Theory of Spacetime". International Journal of Modern Physics A. 04 (19): 5047–5117. Bibcode:1989IJMPA...4.5047N. doi:10.1142/S0217751X89002156.
  6. Nottale, L. (2011). Scale Relativity and Fractal Space-Time: A New Approach to Unifying Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. World Scientific Publishing. Bibcode:2011srfs.book.....N.
  7. Magee, Christopher L.; Devezas, Tessaleno C. (2011). "How many singularities are near and how will they disrupt human history?" (PDF). Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 78 (8): 1365–78. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2011.07.013.
  8. Peter, Patrick (2013). "Laurent Nottale: Scale relativity and fractal space-time". General Relativity and Gravitation. 45 (7): 1459–61. Bibcode:2013GReGr..45.1459P. doi:10.1007/s10714-013-1535-8.
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