Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat

Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat (née Baudot, March 5, 1912 – December 3, 1980) was a French theoretical physicist. Her physics research focused on relativistic quantum mechanics under the influence of gravity. With the help of Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger, she attempted to propose one of the first unified field theories. She is also known for her work on the history of special and general relativity.

Early years and education Marie-Antoinette Baudot was born on March 5, 1912, in Charolles, a commune in the Southern Burgundy region of France. She began her education at the Lycée de Chalon-sur-Saône and finished her secondary education at Lycée Louis-le-Grand. She studied Thomism at the Institut catholique de Paris for her bachelor’s degree in philosophy. She also earned a degree in the sciences at the University of Sorbonne in Paris. The same year she married fellow physicist Jacques Tonnelat and took his surname, becoming known as Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat. In 1945 she became a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Research with de Broglie Tonnelat's research focused on the field of relativistic spin-particles under the influence of a gravitational field. With de Broglie's neutrino theory of light, Tonnelat arrived at particles with maximal spin 2 from massive spin 1 particles, or photons. Spin 2 corresponded to the graviton. With her knowledge of the Klein-Gordon equation, Maxwell's equations, and the linearised version of the equation for Einstein spaces, she examined the theory for a particle with spin 2 and called it "a unitary formalism". She published a paper in the early 1940s in which she established the standard commutation relations for the quantized spin-2 field. De Broglie supported her research in unified field theory, but he himself stayed away from it and chose not to be directly involved with her studies.

In 1953, just prior to Einstein's death, Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat was invited to Princeton University. She spoke about the topic at the International Congress for the History of Science in Jerusalem. She gave many lectures throughout her career about her work related to the theory of relativity.

In 1980, Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat's deteriorating health made it difficult for her to continue giving her lectures. She died on 3 December 1980, shortly after giving her last lecture. She was awarded the Pierson–Perrin Prize (1946) and the Henri Poincaré Award (1971) by French Academy of Sciences.

Tonnelat received the of the Académie Française in 1972 for her book History of the Principle of Relativity . The prize is awarded for outstanding publications.

Tonnelat was elected as a member of the International Academy of the History of Science in 1973.