MHD and Astrophysical Physics Research

Why I will not teach any MHD courses,
neither at Supaéro nor on my website

J.P. Petit

page 0

December 12, 2003: I had planned to post on my website an extensively illustrated text summarizing everything I had covered during a lecture that lasted nearly three hours. In the meantime, I saw emerge all these cold plasma projects, some even led by the CNRS itself. France suddenly discovered an irresistible interest in research topics for which I had struggled in vain for over twenty years, going so far as to work in a cellar with scavenged equipment, much like Bernard Palissy.

All this left me suddenly with a bitter taste in my mouth. A past that for me began in 1965 rose up again in thick, putrid fumes.

Some find my texts grating, my tone often bitter. Perhaps it's time I revealed my true thoughts: young people, the world of research is generally rather unpleasant. Not only are there many dishonest individuals, but there are also many who are simply stupid—and often both at once.

It's not a month that goes by without a young student sending me a message saying, "It's done—I've found my path. I'm going to become a researcher." And I always try to dissuade them, knowing perhaps it's no better elsewhere. Let me tell you a story from the late 1950s. I had just joined Supaéro, at a time when the school was still located on Boulevard Victor, south of Paris. I had been invited to spend the weekend at a friend's house, whose husband was a wealthy nobleman, Count de Pomereu. At his table were Jean-François Revel and Nathalie Sarraute, among others whose names I've forgotten. I was introduced to a certain Kreisl, who explained that he was stationed at Princeton University, where he worked on mathematical logic.

"But you're not actually in Princeton right now..."
"No, I travel all over and jump on young students."
"So you're hardly ever in Princeton?"
"Ja. Occasionally I produce a small theorem just to keep people from bothering me. But there is one day when it's absolutely essential to be at the university: the day of the recollection, when the dean gives his speech before all the faculty and researchers."

"Excuse me, but as a young engineering student, I don't know what 'research' is called."
"Ahr so! My dear fellow, it's to the one who flies first!"

That phrase stayed lodged in my ear, and I must admit I've experienced it many times since. In fact, in this world, the only way to avoid trouble is to have no ideas at all—which fortunately is the case for the vast majority of researchers. The more ideas you have, the more trouble you get into. I must say, I was served a taste of this barely a year after joining a CNRS laboratory. In 1966, as some journals now like to remind us, I became the first person in the world to successfully operate an MHD generator "out of equilibrium," equipped with two distinctly different temperatures: four to six thousand degrees for the gas, ten thousand for the "electron gas." I had found a way to "capture the Vélikhov velocity instability," and it worked on the first try. Everything was settled in a single morning—I remember it well. I presented this at the Warsaw MHD conference in 1967. And that's when the troubles began. Many people thought this was a breakthrough of the century, thinking, "If he managed to lower the gas temperature from 10,000 to 4,000 degrees, the rest of the path must be achievable. If it's possible to reduce the gas temperature to 1,500 Kelvin, then materials must exist capable of withstanding such temperatures. The industrial applications of this direct energy conversion process (thermal, then kinetic into electrical energy) with an efficiency potentially reaching 60% represented phenomenal sums."

The state of siege lasted for years, until, after seven years spent at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics in Marseille, I finally told myself:

"My old chap, if you stay in this place, you'll go mad. You must find a way out."

So I became a theorist in six months. I devoured the entire kinetic theory of gases like a desperate man (Chapman and Cowling: "The Mathematical Theory of Non-Uniform Gases," Cambridge University Press). If I had needed to learn Chinese to escape, I would have done it. In less than a year, I had completed a perfectly respectable doctoral thesis and obtained a very favorable opinion on my work from Lichénrowicz, an academician and mathematician. With that, I managed to extricate myself from this abominable crab basket (the lab is now dissolved).

I removed the second term from my Boltzmann equation, as one prunes a tree. It became the Vlasov equation. I coupled it to the Poisson equation, transformed my electrons into stars, and became an astrophysicist at the Marseille Observatory. There, it was as quiet as in a retirement home. To avoid trouble, I never requested funding, office space, or travel expenses—nothing. There's nothing quite like modest demands to enjoy a peaceful life while watching others fight over every penny. I often compared the university-research world to a henhouse, often quite shabby. Once a year, the farmer comes and throws a handful of grain. The birds, leaping from their perches, then slaughter each other trying to grab as much as possible. These academic poultry fight just as fiercely to seize perches from which they can then defecate on those below. I believe the most extraordinary thing about this world is that people expend the same energy as in the TV series "Dallas" for utterly ridiculous sums. Intrigues worthy of admiration by the Venetians, intricate and subtle plots, carefully prepared over long periods, are hatched just to seize positions and powers that are utterly insignificant.

Scientists are often boring, but science is fun—fortunately, when one chooses to live it the way Lanturlu did. In 1975–76, I had a relapse into MHD, which led to an entirely different series of adventures that I recounted in my book "Enquête sur les OVNIS," published by Albin Michel. Again, not particularly brilliant stories—but they're commonplace. I don't know if you've read "The Double Helix," written by Watson, who shared his Nobel Prize with Crick, his senior colleague. At the time, both were at the Cavendish Laboratory, directed by "Bragg's son"—not the famous crystallographer Bragg, inventor of the law of the same name. Watson recounts that one day Crick had presented an idea in a seminar and was unpleasantly surprised to see it published a few weeks later by Bragg's son. He then stormed into his office to complain. Bragg, without looking up from the newspaper he was reading, replied:

"Mr. Crick, I remind you that you are merely a contractual employee here, and your position could be reconsidered at any moment. You may go."

Yes, that's how it often goes. As for me, who is speaking to you now, I've seen and lived plenty of green and not-so-ripe experiences. To the discerning listener, greetings...