Laurent Nottale

Scientific career

Nottale began his professional work in the domain of general relativity. He defended his PhD Thesis in June 1980, entitled "Perturbation of the Hubble relation by clusters of galaxies", in which he showed that clusters of galaxies as a whole may act as gravitational lenses on distant sources. Some of these important results were reported in Nature.

He also published a popular book L'Univers et la Lumière, Flammarion, Nouvelle Bibliothèque Scientifique 1994, Champs 1998) for which he received a prize in 1995 (Prix du livre d'Astronomie Haute-Maurienne-Vanoise).

One can distinguish two periods in Nottale's scientific career. The first one from 1975 to 1991 is dedicated to the study of gravitational lenses. This first period allowed him to become expert in general relativity, a decisive requirement for the second period. The second period, from 1984 until today is focused on developing Scale Relativity, which aims to unify quantum physics and relativity theory.

Scale Relativity in a nutshell

Scale Relativity aims to unify quantum physics and relativity theory by introducing explicitly the scales of observation in physical equations as characterizing the "state of scale" of the coordinate system. This is made possible by the fundamental relative nature of scales: only scale ratios have a physical meaning, never an absolute scale, in the same way as there exists no absolute velocity, but only velocity differences. The analogy between special relativity and scale relativity can be pushed quite far. Einstein introduced parameters of velocity in the observational referential. The theory implies that similar results as special relativity with velocity should apply with the introduction of scales:

Scale relativity is developed as an extension of Einstein's relativity, and is founded on the same heuristic principle. The core idea is to suppose the existence of trajectories varying according to scale transformations. Those trajectories are not rectifiable, i.e. they are fractal. The apparently disordered motions of particles at the quantum scale are described in terms of motions following fractal geodesics. The key mathematical tool used in the theory are fractals, which Nottale also enriched to be able to model fractal space-time. The theory leads to fundamental results, as well as precise predictions, many of which have been verified with great precision.

Among the theoretical predictions of scale relativity are:

Among the applied predictions of scale relativity to date:

A letter to the New Scientist has suggested that the theory needs closer critical attention, coverage and discussion from the scientific community:

"I do not understand why Nottale's theory has not been given wider coverage or discussion. If he is wrong it needs debunking, if he is right he deserves a Nobel prize."

Awards

In 1987 he received the prize Digital of the French Society of Astronomy Specialists (Société Française des Spécialistes d'Astronomie). The same year, he also received a prize from the French Academy of Science.

In 1995, his book L'Univers et la Lumière, Flammarion, Nouvelle Bibliothèque Scientifique 1994, received a prize for astronomy writing, Haute-Maurienne-Vanoise (Prix du livre d'Astronomie Haute-Maurienne-Vanoise).

In 2003, he received an award from the Centre for Hyperincursion and Anticipation in Ordered Systems (CASYS, Liège University).

In 2008, he received the best paper award at the Conference on the Evolution and Development of the Universe (EDU 2008).