Page 42 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Neutrons for Science
In 1953 he was placed in charge of the mathematical physics department. From then on he concentrated full time on reactors.
It was an era when the CEA was developing a civil energy programme based on gas-cooled reactors and using graphite as
a moderator; the only solution which used resources available within France. National independence was very dear to
Horowitz, and he fought to defend it throughout his life. When
the Americans demonstrated in 1967 the economic advantage
of water-cooled reactors using enriched uranium this posed a dilemma that Horowitz resolved by advocating a continuation
of the existing studies, but studying the American activities, and supporting the creation of a French plant for enriching uranium. This was at the time of the start-up of the ILL reactor, which had still held his interest. He was able to follow more closely when, in 1970, he became overall director of basic research at the CEA. As such in 1978 he unmasked the fraudsters who claimed to be able to detect oilfields using “sniffer planes”; the project had support of those in highest power of state, and hundreds of millions of dollars from the French petrol company ELF. He designed a simple but unequivocal test and proved the claims to be totally fraudulent.
After his death a memorial meeting 13 June 1996 was dedicated to him. If one neglects the inevitable elegiac nature of the contributions there are two essential features of the personality of Horowitz which played a large role in his contribution to the ILL.
Firstly there was his distrust of multilateral agreements. When the scheme for a European reactor through the OECD failed Horowitz was quite satisfied because of this disdain (reinforced by his dislike of Kowarski). He then proposed taking it over in a purely French context, then as a bilateral enterprise which he liked
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