physics

Henri Atlan

Henri Atlan is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Henri Atlan rather than just read about it. In short: Henri Atlan (born 27 December 1931) is a French biophysicist and philosopher. Early life and education Born to a Jewish family in French Algeria, Atlan gained degrees in medicine and biophysics at the University of Paris (now University Paris Diderot).

Key takeaways

Henri Atlan belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Henri Atlan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Henri Atlan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Henri Atlan (born 27 December 1931) is a French biophysicist and philosopher.

Early life and education Born to a Jewish family in French Algeria, Atlan gained degrees in medicine and biophysics at the University of Paris (now University Paris Diderot). He married Liliane Atlan in 1952; they had two children while living in Paris, Miri in 1953 and Michael in 1956. He then moved to the University of California, Berkeley working on ageing and mutation.

Career and thought Influenced by Heinz von Foerster, Atlan became interested in applying cybernetics and information theory to living organisms, and went to the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot to work under the biophysicist Aharon Katchalsky. In 1972, he returned to Paris; and, in that year, his 1972 work on information theory and self-organising systems, entitled L'organisation biologique et la théorie de l'information, received a wide readership. In this book, he proposed the principle of "complexity from noise" (French: le principe de complexité par le bruit), concept taken up in his following book Entre le cristal et la fumée (1979) and development of 1960 Von Foerster's notion of "order from noise". In Paris, he then taught biophysics at the Hôtel-Dieu and, later, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center. His participation with Francisco Varela at a conference in Cerisy-la-Salle encouraged interest in cognitive science in France. Atlan was instrumental in the establishment of the Centre de Recherche en Epistémologie Appliquée (CREA) at the École Polytechnique, and was appointed in 1983 to the Comité Consultatif National d'Éthique pour la Sciences de a Vie et de la Santé (National Advisory Committee on Ethics in the Life Sciences and Medicine). He is director of studies in the philosophy of biology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and professor emeritus of biophysics at the University of Paris VI: Pierre et Marie-Curie. He is also a member of Collegium International, an organization of leaders with political, scientific, and ethical expertise whose goal is to provide new approaches in overcoming the obstacles in the way of a peaceful, socially just, and an economically sustainable world.

Works Atlan, Henri (2011), Selected Writings: On Self-Organization, Philosophy, Bioethics, and Judaism, Fordham Univ Press, ISBN 9780823231812 L'organisation biologique et la théorie de l'information, 1972 Atlan, H. (June 1974). "On a formal definition of organization". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 45 (2). Elsevier: 295−304. Bibcode:1974JThBi..45..295A. doi:10.1016/0022-5193(74)90115-5. PMID 4844620. Entre le cristal et la fumée: Essai sur l'organisation de vivant, 1979 À tort et à raison: Inter-critique de la science et du mythe, 1986 Tout, non, peut-être: Education et vérité, 1991 Atlan, Henri; Bousquet, Catherine (1994), Questions de vie : Entre le savoir et l'opinion Les étincelles de hasard, 1999

References

External links Media related to Henri Atlan at Wikimedia Commons

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Henri Atlan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Henri Atlan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Henri Atlan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Henri Atlan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Henri Atlan

In research: Henri Atlan appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Henri Atlan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Henri Atlan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1931 births, 20th-century French Jews, 20th-century French male writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Henri Atlan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Henri Atlan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Henri Atlan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Henri Atlan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Henri Atlan in simple terms?

Henri Atlan (born 27 December 1931) is a French biophysicist and philosopher. Early life and education Born to a Jewish family in French Algeria, Atlan gained degrees in medicine and biophysics at the University of Paris (now University Paris Diderot).

Why does Henri Atlan matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Henri Atlan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Henri Atlan.