Abstract
In France in 1968 many lively discussions and debates took place at several universities and laboratories in which official authority was questioned. Very often in such debates someone would stand up and ask the previous speaker: “Who are you to assert such a thing?” or “From where are you speaking?” Forty years later, to avoid such questions, I will say right away “from where” I am writing this text, which is by no means an exhaustive study of French-Cuban collaboration in physics at that time, but rather a personal recollection.
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Notes
- 1.
This committee was founded against the background of solidary initiatives supporting the anti-Imperialism movements in, for example, Cuba and Vietnam. Capdeville and Levesque (2011) show for the faculties of science at the University of Orsay that a French-Cuban committee was founded as early as 1968.
- 2.
See the contribution by Baracca, Fajer and Rodríguez to this volume.
- 3.
The name of the person who held the course is given in parenthesis, as well as the number of students who took part, if known.
Reference
Capdeville, Yvonne and Dominique Levesque. 2011. La Faculté des sciences d’Orsay et le Vietnam. De la solidarité militante à la coopération universitaire (1967–2010), Paris: L’Harmattan.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jean-Claude Chervin, who has kept so many documents for such a long time and has kindly allowed them to be used here.
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Appendix
The documents in this appendix were provided by the author. The excerpts featured here were selected and translated from French by Angelo Baracca.
Appendix
1.1 Document 1
Declaration of the Committee for French-Cuban Scientific and University Collaboration
Greetings to the Committee from his Excellency, Dr. Baudilio Castellanos Garcia, Cuban Ambassador to France
Paris, 10 October 1969
In recent years, French scientists and academics have had the opportunity to visit Cuba, notably in 1968 for the Cultural Congress organized in Havana, during which the problem of the underdevelopment of science and technology was studied.
The blockade of the island makes contact between Cuban universities and scientists and their West European and American counterparts difficult, impeding the free circulation of scientific information.
It therefore seemed useful to create an organism charged with the establishment of academic and scientific collaboration between Cubans and French. It is our Committee that proposes to play this role. […]
The goal of the Committee is to promote French-Cuban cooperation in the domains of teaching, research, technology, and culture.
Of course, the Committee hopes to see official relations between France and Cuba develop as much as possible through the signing of agreements for scientific, technical and cultural cooperation, through the exchange of delegations of experts and of grant-holders. […]
Before the official creation of the Committee, a certain number of activities took place.
In the first place, in collaboration with the Havana University, we were able to organize Summer Schools in various fields.
In 1968: Mathematics (probability calculus), statistics (test planning in view of applications to agronomy), solid-state physics (basic course and technical course on the problems of transistors), molecular biology and immunology.
In 1969: Mathematics (functional analysis), statistics (following the 1968 course), programming, process planning, solid-state physics (following the 1968 course), molecular biology (following the 1968 course), genetics (directed at practical work), plant physiology (directed at specific applications for Cuba), geography and soil study, problems in forestry, organic chemistry (physical methods of separation), history (problems in methodology), child and learning psychology.
In 1968: thirteen teachers gave courses; there were forty this year. For next year, numerous courses have already been conceived and discussed, dealing at the same time with the problems of teaching the sciences and the basic humanistic disciplines, but also with specific technical problems. The number of courses in technological fields in particular will be considerably increased. […]
For these summer schools, the Committee collaborated with some highly qualified foreign specialists, notably from America. England, Germany (Federal Republic), Italy. On the whole, these schools were a success. They enabled very useful discussions to take place on teaching (programs and methods), on techniques of practical work and the use of material, on the relation between theory and practice. Numerous personal and social contacts were established, and French teachers were able to experience first-hand the inherent difficulties of developing countries, and to observe entirely new experiences. For our Cuban colleagues, these human relations often help them to break out of their professional isolation.
The Committee’s activities are not limited to the summer schools. We made great efforts to send French teachers to Cuba for periods ranging from six months to two years, as well as researchers who were capable of leading a team. We have benefited from the interest shown in this problem by the Directors of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique. We try to favor Cuban grant holders coming to France and sending young French voluntary workers to Cuba by way of military service; a possibility that French students and young technicians are unaware of. Finally, we can facilitate the purchase of material for our Cuban colleagues by providing them the necessary documentation. […]
We would like to associate with our efforts the highest number of scientists and academics interested in the problems of cooperation with a country that is making great sacrifices to develop its culture, as has been shown by past campaigns for literacy and mass education, and now shown by current efforts to introduce modern technology to agriculture, industry and the economy.
Cuban authorities and colleagues have always put great trust in us. The cordiality of their acceptance, the efforts and economic sacrifices they made in establishing a close collaboration among the scientists and academics of the two countries leave us in no doubt that it is necessary to vigorously develop the activity of our Committee and to associate to it the highest possible number of academics, researchers and engineers.
For the Committee officials:
Mr. HELLER, President of the Committee, Professor at the Parisian Faculty of Sciences
Mr. D. DACUNHA-CASTELLE, General Secretary, Master of Conferences at the Strasbourg Faculty of Sciences
and the honorary members of the Committee:
Mr. Raymond FEVRIER, General Inspector of the I.N.R.A.
Mr. POITOU, Dean of the Orsay Faculty of Sciences
Mr. Jean JACQUE, Research Director of C.N.R.S. at the Collège de France
Mr. Yves LACOSTE, Professor of Geography at the Institute of Geography
Mr. Adam KEPPES, Research Director of C.N.R.S. at the Collège de France
Mr. Pierre LEHMANN, Professor of Physics at the Orsay Faculty of Sciences
Mr. Laurent SCHWARTZ, Professor of Mathematics at the Parisian Faculty of Sciences
Mr. Pierre VILAR, Professor at Sorbonne
Mr. Charles THIBAULT, Director of the Station Centrale de Physiologie animale
[Greetings from Dr. Baudilio Castellanos Garcia, Cuban Ambassador to France, to the members of the Committee … ]
French university researchers and scholars, together with Cuban and other colleagues of many other nationalities, organized summer courses in 1968 and 1969 in Havana, Cuba. To launch and develop their plans, they organized themselves into a committee known as the Committee for French-Cuban Scientific and University Collaboration.
We consider these activities to be one of the most impressive human adventures currently unfolding in the formation and diffusion of science.
Professors from France, England, Germany, North America and Italy lectured at a summer school that they themselves organized. Their courses were offered during the last weeks of July, in August, and sometimes during the first week of September. The duration of the courses varied, in general, between fifteen and forty days.
With no intention of offending the modesty of these professors, we should point out that in giving these courses, they renounced their summer break, thus sacrificing time with their families during the traditional holiday period. In doing this inspiring deed that is worthy of recognition, we should point out as well that their services were offered for free, and moreover, that their work in Cuba involved costs for books, materials and air transport from Paris to Madrid.
The first summer school is devoted mainly to natural sciences. The second expands this essential activity with courses in the humanities and technology.
These courses were aimed at Cuban professors at our three universities, at students in their final years, and at technicians and researchers at various research institutes and ministries.
Once in Cuba, the professors were not satisfied with simply giving their respective courses, they helped, moreover, to revise our curricula, both for university teaching and for secondary, technical and primary education.
Furthermore, the professors visit our facilities and laboratories, discuss with our technicians, travel in the regions of our country, and finally offer their advice and criticisms.
The remarkable aid offered to our country by the Committee and by the professors supplement the assistance already received from international organizations such as UNESCO, WHO and others, as well as that granted by the French government and by other countries, in particular, the socialist countries, and that what we have received from the industrial and commercial firms with whom we have relations.
The leading members of the Committee have given themselves the objective of honouring the higher qualifications within the national framework of our country in order to launch during the next decade the creation of autonomous and high-quality schools in Cuba.
In the coming months, the Committee proposes to expand both horizontally and vertically. For the current scholarly year of the Cuban universities, several professors have already been sent. And young Cuban researchers are already in France in laboratories chosen by the Committee.
Making use of experiences from previous years, the Committee, in collaboration with Cuban universities, is now planning the activities for summer 1970. It is up to us to create, with farsighted and meticulous work, the summer school 1970 and, after Cuba has obtained a large crop of ten million sugar canes, a fruitful scientific event.
Three hundred men of science from twenty or thirty nations or disciplines could produce a chain reaction of human intellectual energy and generate a fusion of neurons that could shake up the international scientific community and release new forces so that summer schools may be created in other countries of the underdeveloped world.
The delay in the cultural, scientific and technical development of the peoples of the third world is more acute than the delay in its economic development and more noticeable since it denies any effective means of solving the problems of modern society.
It is agreed that the importance of the sacrifice and of the magnificent tasks carried out by the Committee and the researchers at universities in France and other nations are not only a service to Cuba, but also to the whole of humanity.
To them, the infinite gratitude of our people.
1.2 Document 2
Report on the Physics Courses Held at the Summer School of 1971, and Projects and Remarks for the Summer School of 1972 (excerpts).
[…]
1971 Summer Schools
During summer 1971, 6 courses took place in Havana:
-
Detection of weak signals (Weisbuch – 27)Footnote 3
-
Hall effect (Jacquinot – 8)
-
Planar technology (Pollard and Chervin – 14)
-
Thin layers (Leger)
-
Metals: electron microscopy, metallurgy (Gantois and Schmidt)
Who are the students? Where do the courses take place? Why does the number of students vary from one course to another? The answers to these questions enable a survey of more or less all the organizations where, let us say, physics “is done” in Cuba.
The students come:
-
from the School of Physics at the University of Havana. These are either persons who already work at the School of Physics (where they teach and work in the laboratories) or students from the previous year
-
from CNIC (Cuban CNRS)
-
from IFN (Institute of Nuclear Physics)
-
from CUJAE (Technological University, situated near Havana).
Some Remarks
-
Among the 6 courses held this year, two were held for the first time: those on metals (the Cubans have been asking for these courses for a long time, but it is often difficult to find persons who can bridge the university and industrial sectors).
-
The other courses were held in continuity with those held in previous years. The Summer Schools on the other hand are more effective due to this continuity, and as exchanges are established between the Cubans and French over the course of the year. This proved to be particularly true in the sector of planar technology where progress from one year to the next is particularly spectacular (it is worth mentioning the dynamism and competence of the Cuban team involved).
-
As well as a certain continuity of subjects (in certain aspects, at least corresponding to the experiences already made in the laboratory), there was up to now a real continuity from the side of the French teachers. This does not necessarily imply that it is the same person who guarantees a course from one year to the next, but rather persons who, in France, work in the same group with analogous subjects or techniques.
The Difficulties
-
For the teachers, the difficulties often consist in the heterogeneity of the level of the students.
-
Difficulties are often met in what concerns collaboration and coordination among the various systems. But this year all is going quite well: in planar technology a group exists that works at the School of Physics, and another one at the CUJAE, and one can say roughly that human resources came from the School of Physics and materials from the CIJAE. Pollard’s influence was decisive in provoking the necessary collaboration between the two teams.
-
Also, several groups from the School of Physics will be called upon to collaborate on the implementation and utilization of certain equipment (Lock In implemented by Weisbuch).
-
Evidently, difficulties persist that are related to underdevelopment, at the level of absence of small materials (for instance screws), of the non-standardization of equipment, and of a sometimes not very efficient running of the mechanics workshop (the arrival of a French technician this year was on the other hand invaluable).
1972 Summer Schools
The Cubans have requested this year:
-
A course on metallurgy (in continuation of the 1971 course – professors acquired with Schmidt and Gantois acting as intermediaries).
-
A course on crystal growth.
-
A course on MOS devices.
-
A course on electronic devices which in principle must be held by an engineer.
-
A course on magnetic resonance which could probably be held by the same person as in 1969 and 1970 (Geissler).
-
A course on theoretical physics (still quite badly defined since it should be held in connection with experiences made in the laboratory and everyone knows the difficulties of bringing experimenters and theoreticians together).
-
A course on thin layers.
In addition, we point out that several courses were requested by Santiago:
-
A course on experimental spectroscopy (no one has been found yet).
-
A course on X-rays (in connection with chemists).
-
A course on the application of radioisotopes to agriculture (but according to the agronomists, the situation is not mature enough for such a course).
1.3 Document 3
University of Havana 1970
School of Physics, Specialization Courses for Graduates
PHYSICS OF TRANSITION METALS
-
1.
Electronic Structure of Metals:
-
Calculation of band structure.
-
Analysis of bands of almost free electrons.
-
Band structure vs. localized states.
-
d-band and virtual d-level.
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Width of the d-band.
-
Density of states.
-
s-d mixture.
-
Fermi surface of copper and nickel.
-
-
2.
Correlation. Electron-Electron. Magnetism:
-
Effect of correlation and dependence on spin.
-
Large and small magnetic moments.
-
Finite temperature magnetism.
-
Sin-orbit effect.
-
-
3.
Introduction to Landau theory of Fermi liquids:
-
Paramagnetic and ferromagnetic liquids.
-
Professor:
Jean Hanus (Appointed researcher at CNRS. Laboratory of Solid-State Physics)
p-n JUNCTION IN SEMICONDUCTORS
-
I.
General Properties of p-n Junctions
-
1.
Short revision of the general principles of deriving a p-n junction: diffusion, alloying, etc.
-
2.
Elementary principle for deriving the insertion.
-
3.
Control of p-n junctions.
-
4.
p-n profile.
-
5.
Electrical characteristics.
-
6.
Experimental work
-
7.
Experimental study of diffusion in silicon.
-
8.
Voltage-current characteristics of samples.
-
9.
Depth of diffusion.
-
1.
-
II.
Technology of Diffusion Ovens
-
1.
Calculation of diffusion oven.
-
2.
Criteria of selection for the constituent elements.
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3.
Method of calibration of thermocouples.
-
4.
Measurements at high temperatures.
-
5.
Systems of temperature regulation.
-
6.
Experimental work:
-
Construction of an oven at regulated and stable temperatures suitable for operating at temperatures up to 120°C.
-
-
1.
-
III.
Planar Technology of Semiconductors
-
1.
Physics of surfaces in semiconductors.
-
2.
General principles for deriving MOS devices.
-
3.
Experimental work:
-
Implementation of planar diodes in silicon.
-
Preliminary implementation of diffused transistors.
-
-
1.
Professors:
Christian Verie (Dr. of science, appointed researcher at CNRS)
Jean Claude Chervin (Research engineer, CNRS)
Gonzalo Velasco (Research engineer, CNRS)
MAGNETIC RESONANCE
-
1.
Basic principles of magnetic resonance. Classic account.
-
2.
Dilation dipole in solids.
-
3.
Relaxation process in solids and in liquids.
-
4.
Indirect coupling between nuclear spins: metals, molecules.
-
5.
Experiments for multiple impulses.
Professor:
Erik Geissler (Master of Conferences at the Faculty of Sciences, Grenoble. Laboratory of Physical Spectrometry)
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS FOR COMPUTERS
-
1.
Introduction
-
Description of a computer.
-
Principal parts.
-
Electronic functions used in computation.
-
-
2.
Evolution of integrated Circuits
-
The large families of integrated circuits: ECL, TTL, DTL, RTL, MOS, LSI.
-
-
3.
Techniques used in the fabrication of integrated circuits
-
4.
Specific technical problems in the use of integrated circuits
-
Implementation, supply, adapted and non-adapted combinations, bugs.
-
-
5.
Theoretical considerations on the behavior of diodes and transistors in impulse regimes.
-
Practical methods of calculation.
-
-
6.
Modeling (from the aspect of electrics and not logic) of the integrated circuits of different families.
-
7.
Integrated circuits available on the market:
-
Manufacturers, costs and predicted development.
-
-
8.
Practical work.
Professor:
Victor Chantal de Chanteloup (Research Engineer at IRIA. Structure of Electrical Computers)
PROPERTIES OF GALLIUM ARSENIDE
-
1.
Generalities
-
Crystal structure
-
Physical constants
-
Methods of preparation
-
-
2.
Band spectrum
-
Generalities
-
Approximation methods
-
Atomic orbitals, molecular orbitals in the case of one molecule
-
Atomic orbitals, molecular orbitals in the case of the solid
-
-
Bloch theorem
-
Method k.r. Notion of effective mass
-
-
3.
Optical properties
-
Summary of perturbation theory
-
Generalities, absorption, direct and indirect transitions
-
Spontaneous emission, induced emission
-
Theory of the “laser” effect
-
-
4.
Gunn effect
-
Experimental description of the phenomenon
-
Theoretical description
-
-
5.
Practical work
Professor:
Jacqueline Cernogora (Appointed researcher at CNRS, Group of Solid-State Physics)
MEASURE OF LIFETIMES
-
1.
Summary of the lifetimes of minority vectors
-
Direct combination:
-
Case of a direct forbidden band
-
Application to Ga As
-
Case of an indirect forbidden band
-
Application to Ge and Si
-
-
Recombination through mediation of capture centres
-
Application to Ge and Si
-
-
Generalization of the notion of lifetime in the case of a very excited semiconductor, kinetics of recombination
-
-
2.
Experimental methods
-
Pulse method:
-
Light source
-
Light modulation
-
Detection
-
Application to Ge, Si, Ga As
-
-
Resonance method:
-
Theory
-
Experimental device and applications to Ge and Si
-
-
Professor:
Jean Marie Debever (Master of Conferences of the Faculty of Sciences, Paris, Group of Solid State Physics, ENS.)
PLANAR TECHNOLOGY
-
1.
Presentation of planar technology
-
Comparison with other techniques.
-
Microelectronics.
-
-
2.
Basic techniques in the context of planar technology
-
Diffusion technology.
-
Oxidation:
-
Thermic oxidation.
-
Anodic oxidation.
-
-
Epitaxial growth. Different techniques of preparation. Theory and methods of study. Thin films. Realization. Physical characterization.
-
Auxiliary techniques: photogravure, micro welding, etc.
-
-
3.
Practical work
-
Realization and characterization of silicon oxide.
-
Characterization and realization of a p-n junction diffused in silicon.
-
Physical characterization of thin films.
-
Professor:
Gonzalo Velasco (Research Engineer, CNRS.)
1.4 Document 4 (Fig. 24.3)
University of Havana, Materials for work on planar technology
1.- Filter holder for Millipore pipe XX40 02500 | 4 |
2.- Packet of Millipore filters standard 0.8 m type AA with diameter 25 mm | 1 pack. |
3.- Pre-filters diameter 25 mm | 1 pack. |
4.- Filter holder in PVC for clarification of 142mm type YY 40 142 00 | 1 pack. |
5.- Canalization tube in inox. (¾ inch) | 10 m |
6.- Cock for 1’’ (1 inch) vacuum | 2 + 4 |
7.- Cement Desmarques 169–19 | |
8.- Quartz thin slide. | |
9.- Flexible wire of compensation for Pt–Rh/Pt | |
10.- Spherical entrance 19/9 Pyrex. | |
11.- Spherical entrance 19/9 in inox. | |
12.- Pure platinum wire for thermocouple. | |
13.- Specimen holder for diffusion. | |
14.- Quartz tube 10 mm dia., external. | |
- with quartz crucible welded for diffusion. | 1 |
- with quartz leaf for holding aluminum crucible of 30 42 mm | 1 |
15.- Quartz tube 45 40 with conical entrance for diffusion total length 1,300 mm | |
16.- Quartz tubing 45 40 with male spherical jaws for oxidation. Total length 900 mm | |
17.- Conical entrances for previous tubing. | |
18.- 3 liters of acetone for electronics [handwritten] |
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Cernogora, J. (2014). A Witness to French-Cuban Cooperation in Physics in the 1970s. In: Baracca, A., Renn, J., Wendt, H. (eds) The History of Physics in Cuba. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 304. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8041-4_24
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