Paul Langevin

Paul Langevin ForMemRS was a prominent French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the Comit de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an antifascist organization created in the wake of theFebruary 1934 far right riots. Langevin was also president of the Human Rights League from 1944 to 1946160 he had just recently joined the French Communist Party. Being a public opponent against fascism in the 1930s resulted in his arrest and consequently he was held under house arrest by the Vichy government for most of the war.

Langevin was born in Paris, and studied at the cole de Physique et Chimie and the cole Normale Suprieure. He then went to Cambridge University and studied in the Cavendish Laboratory under Sir J. J. Thomson. Langevin returned to the Sorbonne and obtained his Ph.D. from Pierre Curie in 1902. In 1904 he became professor of physics at the Collge de France. In 1926 he became director of the cole de Physique et Chimie , where he had been educated. He was elected, in 1934, to the Acadmie des sciences.

Source: Wikipedia