ABSTRACT
We seldom saw Trombe by appointment. He would catch us while we were waiting for an elevator (a great deal of time is spent at Odeillo waiting for an elevator) and he would go on talking to us as if our conversation had been uninterrupted since the start of our stay. After he discussed rare earths, horses, potholing, solar power, and Pyrenean folklore, he admitted: “I like to spread my self out.” He does, but he manages to do so in depth, quite a neat trick. He stays abreast of rare-earth research through one member of his staff, Germain Male, who works at Odeillo on ways to pre pare the metallic elements of rare earths in their purest forms. This is fine basic science. The intrinsic properties of a material can be learned only if no foreign materials are in the way. Once such purity has been achieved, the chemist can add known quantities of known impurities so that he can achieve new characteristics which he can reproduce at will. These are the lines along which Male works, somewhat as an extension of the youthful Trombe who had not yet assumed the burdens of running a French national labora tory. Male has the freedom that the telephone-ridden Trombe gave up long ago. He need not even use solar energy in his work; often
he can do it on a rainy day with an electric furnace. When we asked him the applications of these ultrapure rare earths, he was hard put to think of an answer that could be grasped by common earthers. Then his face brightened: “Sometimes, they can be used in lighter flints.” We did not waste much of Male’s time, and I am sure that he spent it much more usefully in his frequent consultations with Trombe.
