Georges Friedel

  Georges Friedel (born 19 July, 1865 in Mulhouse; died 11 December 1933 in Strasbourg) was a French mineralogist and crystallographer.

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Life

Friedel was the son of the famous chemist Charles Friedel. He studied at the École Polytechnique in Paris and the École Nationale des Mines in St. Etienne, and was a student of François Ernest Mallard. In 1893 he obtained a professorship at the École Nationale des Mines, the director of which he would later become. After the First World War, he returned as a professor at the University of Strasbourg in Alsace. Due to ill health, he took early retirement in 1930, and died in 1933. He was married with five children.

Scientific works

Like his teacher Mallard, Friedel concerned himself with the theories of Auguste Bravais, the founder of crystallography. Friedel was able to demonstrate the theoretical ideas of Bravais (the Bravais lattice) with the help of x-ray diffraction experiments on crystals, and so provide the physical basis therefore. One of his most important discoveries was the law that now bears his name.

His son, Edmond Friedel, later conducted the first diffraction experiments on liquid crystals, together with Louis de Broglie.

Important publications

• Groupements cristallins (1904)
• Etudes sur les lois de Bravais (1907)
• Les états mésomorphes de la matiere (1922)

See also

• Friedel's law