Aristocratic Culture and the Pursuit of Science The De Broglies in Modern France

摘要

Louis de Broglie received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1929 following experimental confirmation of his theory of the wave properties of the electron. De Broglie was an anomaly among twentieth-century physicists: he was a prince by birth who would become the seventh due de Broglie. What did it mean to be an aristocrat in an age of science? This essay explores aristocratic culture in France in the early twentieth century and examines the family life, education, scientific practices, and social values of Louis de Broglie, his brother Maurice, who was a distinguished experimental physicist, and their sister Pauline, who became a well-known novelist and literary scholar after her scientific interests were discouraged.