Curien, Hubert

▪ 2006

      French scientist and public servant (b. Oct. 30, 1924, Cornimont, France—d. Feb. 6, 2005, Loury, France), pioneered France's space program independent of U.S. or Soviet influence and supervised the debut launch of the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Ariane series of rockets in 1979. In addition to serving as professor in materials science at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris from 1956 until 1995, Curien was director-general of France's national research centre (1968–73), chairman of the national centre for space studies (1976–84), and minister of research and technology (1984–92) under three prime ministers. He was chosen to be the first president of the ESA in 1979. Curien became a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1993 and was eventually elected president of that organization. He was also awarded the Legion of Honour.

▪ 1995

      Physicists suffering from evaporated research funding in 1994 focused their attention on one of the few remaining oases of Big Science, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) planned for the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) near Geneva, and on the new president of the CERN Council, Hubert Curien. When money in the U.S. for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) particle accelerator being built near Waxahachie, Texas, dried up in 1993, it dashed the hopes of particle physicists worldwide for probing beyond the so-called standard model—the successful but incomplete theory of the fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions—toward a more satisfactory and inclusive theory and for answering such basic questions as why quarks, electrons, and other fundamental particles have the masses they do.

      Those hopes were revived in June 1994 when council delegates from 17 of the 19 supporting nations of CERN voted to include the construction of the LHC in the laboratory's basic program. Curien, who took office as council president in January, had been instrumental in rallying support for the LHC and in convincing scientists and government leaders that data from the collider would be their best bet for unraveling some of the mysteries of subatomic physics. At the end of the June meeting he expressed his belief that "there are no major obstacles, but some more effort and a little time is needed" before unanimous approval could be sought at a later session of the council. That consensus came in December, allowing plans for the LHC to proceed. Many American scientists who had been slated to work on the defunct SSC were already employed at CERN, so building the LHC meant brighter future opportunities for them as well as for colleagues who would have the chance for collaborative research.

      Curien was born on Oct. 30, 1924, in Cornimont, France. He was educated in Paris and earned a doctorate in physics, with an emphasis on mineralogy and crystallography, at the University of Paris in 1951. Shortly thereafter he joined the faculty of science at the university, where he stressed the need for a return to basic research in physics. While crusading for that cause, Curien served as director general of France's National Centre for Scientific Research (1969-73), president of the National Centre for Space Studies (1976-84), and council chairman of the European Space Agency (1981-84). In 1984 Curien parlayed his reputation as a defender of basic research into a seat in the French government as minister of research and technology. He occupied that position for two years and then returned to the post from 1988 to 1993. During his ministerial service Curien succeeded in spurring an increase in government funding of nearly 8% for civilian research and development.

      Even before the final CERN vote, scientists and engineers were designing and testing accelerator magnets for the LHC. The activity represented a significant step toward achieving the high-energy collisions between protons (and, later, between heavy atomic nuclei) that would be needed to find some of the exotic new particles thought to lie beyond the standard model. Although installation of the LHC was not scheduled to begin until the year 2000, the interim survival of CERN as the world's premier particle-physics institution would depend heavily on the continued efforts of Curien, its champion of basic science. (SUSAN RAPP)

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