Charpak , Georges

Charpak , Georges
(1924–) French physicist
Charpak, who was born in Dabrovica, Poland, was educated at the Ecole des Mines, Paris. He was imprisoned at Dachau from 1943 until 1945. He then worked in France on nuclear research, mainly at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). He moved in 1959 to CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Reserche Nucléaire; European Laboratory for Particle Physics), in Geneva, where he has since remained.
By the time Charpak arrived at CERN nuclear physicists had begun to search for ever-more-elusive particles. To detect their fleeting and rare appearances could require the examination of thousands of particle tracks. Yet the older particle detectors – bubble chamber, cloud chamber, etc. – could handle only a small proportion of the data pouring from the newer and more powerful accelerators.
In 1968 Charpak described his newly designed drift chamber in which charged wires are strung 1.2 mm apart, layer on layer, in a gas-filled container. A voltage is applied to the wires in such a way that the central wires are charged positively, and the outer ones negatively. If a charged particle enters the detector, it ionizes atoms of gas, and the ions drift to the central wires, triggering a signal. As the wires criss-cross through the chamber it is possible to reconstruct a three-dimensional picture of the ion's tracks from the signals obtained.
When linked to computers the drift chamber can handle a million nuclear events per second. It played a vital role in the 1983 discovery of the W and Z bosons by Carlo Rubbia. It also won for Charpak the 1992 Nobel Prize for physics.
In more recent times Charpak has turned his attention to biochemical reactions.

Scientists. . 2011.

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  • CHARPAK, GEORGES — (1924– ), French physicist and Nobel Prize laureate. Born in Dabrovica, Poland, Charpak came to France with his parents when he was seven years old. A member of the Resistance in World War II, he was imprisoned by the Vichy authorities in 1943… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Charpak, Georges — ▪ French physicist born Aug. 1, 1924, Poland       Polish born French physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1992 for his invention of subatomic particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber.       Charpak s… …   Universalium

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  • Charpak — Georges Charpak (* 1. August 1924 in Dabrovica, Polen, heute Ukraine) ist ein französischer Physiker polnischer Herkunft. 1943 wurde Charpak ins KZ Dachau verschleppt, wo er bis zur Befreiung 1945 gefangen war. 1946 nahm er die französische… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • CHARPAK (G.) — CHARPAK GEORGES (1924 ) Physicien français, né à Dabrovica (Pologne), lauréat du prix Nobel de physique 1992 pour ses travaux sur les détecteurs de particules élémentaires, notamment de la chambre proportionnelle multifils. La famille Charpak… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Georges Charpak — (2005) Georges Charpak (* 1. August 1924 in Dąbrowica, Polen, heute Ukraine; † 29. September 2010 in Paris[1]), war ein französischer …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Charpak —   [ xarpak, französisch ʃar pak], Georges, französischer Physiker polnischer Herkunft, * Dąbrowica (heute Dubrowiza [Ukraine]) 1. 8. 1924; zwischen 1943 und 1945 im Konzentrationslager Dachau; von 1947 bis 1959 am nationalen französischen… …   Universal-Lexikon

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