Page 29 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Chapter 1 - Pre-history
partners willing to participate in
the implementation. Horowitz
was head of the department of
mathematical physics at the CEA,
which dealt primarily with the
physics of nuclear reactors. He
asked Robert Dautray (Fig. 1.8),
then an engineer working for him,
to develop such a project. In the
book by A.L. Edingshaus22 and later
in a discussion in July 1982 with
Tasso Springer23, Maier-Leibnitz
mentioned a conversation he had with M. Baissas about then. The latter was Chief of Staff to Francis Perrin, the High Commissioner of the CEA. During the conversation Baissas expressed his regrets over the demise of the European project, and suggested that it might be revived as a Franco-German construction, perhaps at Grenoble. At this time the powers of the High Commissioner were limited; the true head of the CEA was the General Administrator.
I think Baissas thus spoke to Maier-Leibnitz of discussions which had taken place amongst the directors of the CEA.
For his part in his memoirs “A Century of Physics” Louis
Néel makes no reference at all to the OECD meetings, which, if
I remember correctly24, no scientists from Grenoble were present. He talks about his work with the leaders of the CEA and CNRS for a high flux reactor in Grenoble. It was also around this time
22 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz; “Ein halbes Jahrhundert experimentelle Physik” memoirs collated by Anne-Lydia Ed- ingshaus, Ed. Piper verlag, München and Munich (1986).
23 This discussion, recorded and transcribed, was given to me by Tasso Springer.
24 Possible participants would have been Ageron and Bertaut, both now dead.
20
Fig. 1.8: From left to right: Jean CHARVOLIN, Robert DAUTRAY and Jean-Paul MARTIN during the reconstruction of the ILL reactor
(1994).