Page 92 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Neutrons for Science
Fig. 4.3: Paul LANGEVIN and Max von LAUE
My second comment concerns the name of the Institut. Originally Maier-Leibnitz had proposed to name it “Institut Langevin69-Laue70”, then “Institut Laue-Langevin”. The latter
title was rejected by the French because of the name Langevin being associated with the communist past of Langevin; it was only considered acceptable if it was accompanied by his first name71. Hence the current official name. Remarkably however, in both
the texts signed by the ministers on 19 June 1967, the institute
to which they created is named as “Institut Max von Laue - Paul Langevin”, but in the statutes, signed by the associates it is entitled “Institut Paul Langevin - Max von Laue”. The anomaly was remedied in the amendment to the articles signed on 19 July 1974, when the third partner, the British SRC joined. In practice,
69 Paul Langevin (1872-1946) French physicist: inventor of Sonar, worked on relativity and magnetism.
70 Max von Laue (1879-1960) German physicist: discovered the diffraction of X-rays by crystals for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1914.
71 This remains a personal memory; I have no documents on this problem of forenames.
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