physics

Maurice Kleman

Maurice Kleman 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 Maurice Kleman rather than just read about it. In short: Maurice Kleman (alternate spelling Kléman; 11 August 1934 – 29 January 2021) was a French physicist involved in experimental and theoretical studies of the physics of defects; he has covered various fields of research, from condensed matter to heliophysics. As an author, he has been collected by libraries worldwide.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Maurice Kleman (alternate spelling Kléman; 11 August 1934 – 29 January 2021) was a French physicist involved in experimental and theoretical studies of the physics of defects; he has covered various fields of research, from condensed matter to heliophysics. As an author, he has been collected by libraries worldwide.

Early life Kleman was born in Paris in a family of Jewish origin which was saved from the Nazi persecutions during the Second World War by the inhabitants of the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, Haute-Loire, as many other refugees were; this village is collectively honored as Righteous Among the Nations.

Education Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines de Paris; PhD under J. Friedel’s supervision on ferromagnetic thin films, at the French Iron and Steel Institute (IRSID). Postdoc at the University of Oxford.

Career Kleman belonged to the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) since 1969, first as a member of the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides (LPS) in Orsay (1969-1993), which he headed from 1982 to 1984, then of the Laboratoire de Minéralogie et de Cristallographie de Paris (LMCP). He joined the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) in 2010 and has been visiting professor at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Research Kleman’s research covers many domains, in materials science (liquid crystals, quasicrystals, magnetic systems, amorphous media), more recently in heliophysics (magnetic flux ropes). In all these domains his interests are concerned with the concept of defect, in the continuation of F.C. Frank and J. Friedel. He demonstrated the role of curved crystal defects in the topology of frustrated systems. He developed with J. Friedel the concepts of continuous defects. He showed that interplanetary magnetic flux ropes can be understood as extended singularities of the vector potential.

Awards 1975: Médaille d'argent du CNRS 1980: Prix de Physique Jean Ricard de la Société Française de Physique 2007: Grand Prix de l’Académie des Sciences (prix du CEA) 2018: International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Books Kleman M (1983). Points, lines and walls: in liquid crystals, magnetic systems and various ordered media. Wiley. ISBN 9780471101949. Kleman M, Lavrentovich OD (January 2003). Soft Matter Physics, an Introduction. New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/b97416. ISBN 9780387217598. Kleman M (2016). Chronologie d'un physicien. Montrouge: Calvage & Mounet. ISBN 9782916352602.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maurice Kleman

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maurice Kleman 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 Maurice Kleman 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 Maurice Kleman 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 Maurice Kleman

In research: Maurice Kleman 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 Maurice Kleman 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: Maurice Kleman is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1934 births, 2021 deaths, 20th-century French Jews, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maurice Kleman 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 Maurice Kleman in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Maurice Kleman 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 Maurice Kleman out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Maurice Kleman in simple terms?

Why does Maurice Kleman 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 Maurice Kleman?

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 Maurice Kleman.