No Wisdom Without Folly

This book is a biography of François Englert, the first Belgian Nobel Laureate in Physics. Jointly awarded to him and British physicist Peter Higgs, the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics was celebrated for the understanding of the origin of massive particles in the emerging Universe, one of the most important breakthroughs in Physics in the second half of the 20th century.

From his childhood as the son of Jewish emigrants, a "hidden child" during the Second World War, a rebellious youth - still a rebel fond of poetry and music, aware of the "sound and fury" of the world - to his achievements as a physicist and his contributions that won the Nobel Prize, readers will find the life story of François Englert imbued with the epitome of resilience. The epilogue further expresses Englert's philosophical and scientific standpoints about the future of Physics.

Although written with a great concern for scientific accuracy, the book's primary goal is to offer the lay reader an accessible account of the life and scientific work of François Englert. This is to address the fact that the development of fundamental physics, one of the greatest intellectual revolution in the history of mankind, remains largely unknown to the general public.

The author, Danielle Losman, is a former student of François Englert and a literary translator. When the suggestion came about to write his biography, it seemed natural to the professor and his former student to embark together in this adventure.