Francis Perrin

Francis Perrin was born in Paris on 17 August 1901, to writer Henriette Perrin-Duportal and to physicist Jean Perrin, later a Nobel laureate. He attended École Normale Supérieure in Paris. In 1928 he obtained a doctorate in mathematical sciences from the faculté des sciences of Paris, based upon a thesis on Brownian motion and became a faculty member of Collège de France.

In 1933, in connection with the neutrino, Francis Perrin estimated that "the mass must be null—or at least small compared to the mass of the electron". Subsequently, he worked at the Collège de France on the fission of uranium. With Frédéric Joliot and his group, he established in 1939 the possibility of nuclear chain reactions and nuclear energy production.

He was professor at the Collège de France in the chair of Atomic and Molecular Physics from 1946 to 1972. He was the French high-commissioner for atomic energy from 1951 to 1970.

Perrin actively supported the project for a European nuclear research centre, and was a signatory for France to the Convention establishing the CERN Provisional Council in February 1952 in Geneva. He was elected vice-president of this council, and remained French delegate on the CERN Council until 1972.

Francis Perrin married Colette Auger, the sister of the physicist Pierre Auger. Francis Perrin was the president of Union des Athées (Union of Atheists) after his resignation from the French atomic energy commission.

A French research laboratory, associating the Atomic Energy Commissariat and the National Centre for Scientific Research, was named after him.