Magda Ericson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Magda Galula Ericson
Portrait of Magda Ericson, CERN, Department of Theoretical Physics
Born	December 18, 1929 (1929-12-18) (age 96) Tunis, Tunisia
Alma mater	Sorbonne
Known for	Ericson-Ericson Lorentz-Lorenz correction
Spouse(s)	Torleif Ericson
Awards	Palmes Académiques 1978 Gay-Lussac-Humboldt-Prize 1992 Knight of the Legion of Honour 2015 Fulbright scholarship 1960
Scientific career
Fields	Condensed matter physics Particle physics Nuclear physics
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) University of Lyon European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Thesis	Étude des fluctuations d'aimantation dans le fer au voisinage de la température de Curie par diffusion des neutrons

Magda Galula Ericson, born in 1929, is a famous French-Algerian physicist. She was born in Tunisia. Her early research helped us understand how materials behave at special temperatures, like the Curie point. Later, she became well-known for developing a theory called the Ericson-Ericson Lorentz-Lorenz correction.

What Magda Ericson Discovered

Magda Ericson's early work was very important. Her PhD research looked at how slow neutrons scatter off iron at different temperatures. This helped scientists understand "critical phenomena" near the Curie point. The Curie point is a special temperature where a material's magnetic properties change a lot.

Ericson is also known for her ideas in nuclear physics, especially about particles called pions. She and her husband, Torleif Ericson, found something called the Ericson-Ericson Lorentz-Lorenz (EELL) effect. This effect helps explain how pions interact with the center of an atom, called the nucleus. It also helps us understand how tiny forces, like electromagnetic and weak interactions, work inside nuclei.

She is also a top researcher on something called the EMC effect. Magda Ericson's work has been very important in creating a whole new area of study: pion physics within nuclear physics. Many other scientists have based their research on her ideas. She continues to do research even today.

Her Journey in Science

Early Life and School

Magda Ericson was born in Tunisia. She finished high school in Algiers, which was part of France at the time, in 1947. After that, she went to special university preparation classes in Algiers from 1947 to 1949. She did so well that she came in first in a national competition. This allowed her to enter a top science school in Paris called the École normale supérieure de Sèvres. In 1953, she again placed first in a big national competition for physical sciences in France.

First Research Steps

From 1953 to 1959, Magda Ericson worked as a research associate at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). She worked at the Saclay center of the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique. Her main focus was on how slow neutrons scatter and on magnetism.

She also worked on her PhD thesis in experimental physics. She defended her thesis at Sorbonne University in 1958. Her pioneering results showed how powerful slow neutron scattering could be for studying materials.

In 1959, her temporary job with CNRS was not renewed. For health reasons, she decided to stop doing experiments and focus on theoretical research instead. She first studied plasma physics. She received a Fulbright scholarship and spent a year at MIT. There, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in a group that studied plasma. During this time, she figured out why plasma sometimes unexpectedly squeezed together.

Her Career and Later Discoveries

After returning to France, Magda Ericson became a lecturer at the University of Lyon. In 1967, she became a full professor there. She held this position until she officially retired in 1995. However, she continues her research and publishes new papers as a professor emeritus. Since 1963, she has also been an unpaid visiting scientist at CERN, a famous research organization.

When she came back to Europe, she switched from experimental physics to theoretical physics. She started working in a new field that combined nuclear and particle physics. This field looked at the role of pions inside atomic nuclei. This was a good choice because her new field had many similarities to her earlier work in condensed matter physics.

A great example of this is the Ericson-Ericson Lorentz-Lorenz effect for low-energy pions. She studied this in detail with Torleif Ericson in a very important paper in 1966. This paper has been cited by many other scientists over the years.

In the early 1980s, Ericson also pointed out that pion physics was one of the reasons for the EMC effect. More recently, her research has focused on how neutrinos interact with nuclei at higher energies. Understanding this is very important for particle physics research. She has also explained something called the "axial anomaly."

Magda Ericson has had an active career that spans over seven decades.

Her Family Life

Magda Ericson married Torleif Ericson in 1957. He is a Swedish nuclear physicist who has worked at CERN since 1960. They have two adult children together. The Ericsons live in Geneva, Switzerland.

Magda Ericson is the aunt of a French mathematician named Jean-Michel Bismut. Her cousin, David Galula, was a well-known military thinker.

Awards and Special Recognitions

Magda Ericson has received many awards for her important work:

• 

  Knight of the Legion of Honour ribbon
  Knight of the Legion of Honour (2015)
• Gay-Lussac-Humboldt-Prize (1992)
• Prix Paul Marguerite de la Charlonie, a prize from the French Academy of Sciences (1987)
• 

  Knight of the Palmes Académiques ribbon
  Knight of the Palmes Académiques (1978)
• Fulbright scholarship (1960)