Page 57 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Chapter 2: Portrait of three founders of the ILL
between industry and the university. His legacies were the high quality laboratories he left. The current development of Grenoble is the evident result of innovative industries being attracted by the presence of the laboratories linked to the CNRS or the CEA. But like all monarchs he was often difficult at first. In the annals of the Fondation Louis de Broglie, published in 2000, Georges Lochak, president of the Foundation, wrote:
“Néel was a leader with all that implies: decisiveness, ability to choose, sometimes a little abrupt in nature”.
He always thought he was right, and most often this was true. Pierre Averbuch, one of his former employees, says Néel was
not authoritarian, but no-one would have imagined countering his wishes. For him the priority was the scientific and industrial development of Grenoble. He worked to reverse the flow of good scientists from the provinces towards Paris, hence his desire to site the ILL in Grenoble. He tried to attract top-level Parisians, (de Gennes, Noziéres). Despite the rebuff he wanted them. Finally Noziéres came, attracted by the ILL; this improved their relationship. I think that the CNRS joined the ILL as a partner is due to him, though I have no proof of it.
Néel worked a lot through direct contact rather than by
correspondence. What I said above about Horowitz also
applies to Louis Néel; there is little written remaining oustide
of his publications before the war and the immediate post war
period. They were nearly all in French47. In almost all of these
publications, most often an interpretation of experimental results
collected by others, he is the sole author. He never put his name
47 I could only find one in English, published in 1953, in the American “Review of Modern Physics”. 2018 addi- tion: There is also a paper in English in “Advances in Physics” published in 1955.
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