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In memoriam: Nobel laureate LCD pioneer Pierre-Gilles de Gennes

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, 74, a Nobel Prize-winning French physicist who was known for research that led to modern liquid-crystal displays and whose broad interests included studies that improved the growing of grapes for wine, died May 18 near Paris.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201503.html

Obituaries
LCD and Wine Researcher Pierre-Gilles de Gennes

By Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 23, 2007; Page B07

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, 74, a Nobel Prize-winning French physicist who was known for research that led to modern liquid-crystal displays and whose broad interests included studies that improved the growing of grapes for wine, died May 18 near Paris.

According to Agence France-Presse, the death was reported by his family, but no cause was given.

The ubiquitous liquid-crystal displays, which consume little energy but offer bright readouts of information on matters ranging from the price of a soda to the time of day to the most intricate technological process, are said to owe much to Mr. de Gennes's pioneering theoretical work.

Capable of flowing like fluids, but retaining a fixed structure reminiscent of solids, liquid crystals, with their oxymoronic name, have been described as an " in-between" state of matter. Their sensitivity to their environment gives them their usefulness in displays.

Current ability to exploit liquid crystals got a big boost from work by Mr. de Gennes and colleagues in Paris in the late 1960s and early 1970s on the frontiers of atomic and molecular physics.

He explained what happens at the crucial times and places of transition, in which the geometric orderliness of molecules in crystals turns into the unruly disorder of molecules in liquids. This contribution to basic science helped him win the 1991 Nobel Prize.

It also brought him, in the words of the French newspaper Le Monde, a few twinges of regret. In 1970, he said, those concerned with scientific theory "were not taught to think about applications." Thus, he said, they proved hugely naive when it came to protecting the rights to potentially valuable inventions.

But, it appeared that Mr. de Gennes recovered quickly from any self-recrimination over the loss of possible readout riches, and continued to display his trademark wit, good humor and creativity.

An athlete and outdoorsman who sketched as a hobby, he was known as wise and learned in many disciplines, and gifted at making clear the complex. Many of those who met him said he made them believe that they, too, were wise and had grasped difficult concepts.

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes was born in Paris in 1932, was home-schooled for a time and studied science at France's Ecole Normale Superieure. He went on to work in magnetism at the French nuclear laboratories in Saclay.

In 1959, he did postdoctoral research in solid-state physics at the University of California at Berkeley. He then served in France's Navy, began work on superconductors and moved into liquid crystals.

After receiving the Nobel, and being called "the Isaac Newton of our time," he frequently spoke to high school students on the relations among science, the imagination and common sense. He liked the idea of manual training.

Interviewers who talked to him 10 years ago found him particularly alert to the possibility that valuable applications might flow from discoveries made in the quest for pure knowledge. He cited the process called "unwetting," describing it is the way water seems to be repelled or expelled from the surfaces of certain materials.

When grapes were sprayed with a fungicide mist, he said, the liquid did not cover the grape, but formed a single droplet at the grape's base. "Our research, which initially was strictly fundamental," he said, made it possible to create sprays that covered 10 times as much of the surface of the grape.

What honor meant to him, he said, did not entail being right all the time. It was rather "to dare, to propose new ideas, and then to verify them." And, also, he said, to know how to admit error.

Survivors include his wife and three children.