Georges Charpak received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1992 for his invention and development of particle detectors, most notably the multiwire proportional chamber. A number of his colleagues, who received the Nobel Prize before him, had used his invention to make important discoveries in physics. Charpak is credited with creating instrumentation that is used by thousands of other scientists at CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics located in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as by researchers in other prominent laboratories involved in the study of the nature of matter.

Born on August 1, 1924, in Dabrovica, Poland, to Maurice Charpak and Anna Szapiro, Charpak moved to France with his family in 1929. In 1943 the French Vichy government accused the young Charpak of being a terrorist and sentenced him to the concentration camp in Dachau, West Germany (now Germany). Charpak remained in the camp until its liberation in 1945. Upon his return to...