Jean Pierre Vigier
May 4, 2004
The physicist Jean-Pierre Vigier
died on Tuesday, May 4, at the age of 84. He was one of the prominent figures of French physics (Research Director at CNRS) and also a committed man in all the struggles of the French left. A highly beloved student of Louis de Broglie, Jean-Pierre Vigier quickly adopted his views and, with numerous collaborators and in many publications, developed the "pilot wave" theory. In this, he opposed the viewpoint of the Copenhagen School (Bohr and Heisenberg), and, as a necessary complement to this view, he considered that the photon of light is a particle endowed with rest mass, intrinsic energy, and not only associated with its motion, as are all other leptons such as neutrinos. He deduced a cosmological theory around the "light fatigue" theory, an alternative—at least partial—to the Big Bang model. Above all, Jean-Pierre Vigier participated in the major debate linked to the EPR paradox, which long agitated the world of physicists, where he was considered an heretic; he proposed crucial experiments, unfortunately of too great a difficulty. Jean-Pierre Vigier also valued his youth as an FTP member in the French resistance. A communist, courageous and even heroic in the fights, he remained so deeply after the war; he received many decorations, notably from the Vietnamese government, which considered him "a liberator of Vietnam"; he was proud of this past as a "freelancer for ideas." He remained committed, with a strong voice and enthusiasm as his standard, whether for the causes of sacrificed minorities, the forgotten ones by the ruling regimes, here or there—whether for the theories he defended without weakness. Jean-Pierre Vigier will remain in our memory as an extremely vivid figure, one of those "forces of nature" who, outside of the most advanced science, lead many physicists into a critical and constructive attitude.
Jean-Claude Pecker
Honorary Professor at the Collège de France
member of the Academy of Sciences