Talk:Maurice de Broglie, 6th Duke of Broglie

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 12:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Maurice, 6th duc de Broglie → Maurice de Broglie – Subject was notable as a physicist rather than as an aristocrat. Google Books search gives 90,000 hits for "Maurice de Broglie". There are a respectable 48,000 hits for Maurice "duc de Broglie", but scanning through the results it looks like most hits have the first name and the title occuring far apart. He also seems to have published under the proposed name, e.g. here. Finally, the article about his equally ducal physicist brother is at Louis de Broglie. Favonian (talk) 17:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support He is primarily known for his contributions in the world of Physics. Noting that his brother's article is titled Louis de Broglie, rather than Louis, 7th duc de Broglie, it seems clear to me that this article should be moved. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 18:56, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support The brothers Louis and Maurice were both sufficient famous for their work in physics to be elected to the Académie Française. It seems unnecessary to emphasize their aristocratic succession in the respective article titles. EdJohnston (talk) 19:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Excellent suggestion for editing.  This is the correct 'Title page', but redirect would be appropriate of course. SLawsonIII (talk) 21:57, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Like most royalty and nobles, his signature omitted his title, but we don't leave out British peers' titles for that reason -- so why do it to a French duke? Arguments that he is known for his scientific work rather than his rank engage in "reverse snobbery": there is no contradiction between being both a duke and a scientist, and Broglie did not renounce his title (yes, it was perfectly legal in republican France) in order to engage in that work or to spare people from having to rid themselves of the prejudice that the ability to pick up a test tube first requires amputation from one's family tree if it is excessively lengthy. By no coincidence, the House of Broglie is a family of many generations of high achievers in science, literature, diplomacy and on the battlefield -- almost all of them known to history (regardless of what colloquial names they may have been called by contemporaries) by their names and titles. Must we really re-instate the Terror and send nobles to an encyclopedic guillotine to protect ourselves from the inegalitarianism reflected in historical articles? If so, one must wonder if, after all, the dying injunction of Prince Victor de Broglie to his son, the future 3rd duc de Broglie, was an ignoble rather than a noble act? FactStraight (talk) 04:46, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Nobody favors sending this worthy man to the guillotine. Can you find a formulation that allows the title to contain the string 'Maurice de Broglie'? That is how people would look him up as a scientist. A longer version might be created that contains everything: 'Maurice de Broglie, 6th duc de Broglie' but that seems like overkill. On the English side, we do have John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, but that seems more tolerable. In my physics textbooks he was always known as Lord Rayleigh. (The textbooks seemed unaware that he had a first name). I very much doubt that Maurice is known in the textbooks as 'Duc de Broglie.' EdJohnston (talk) 14:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Picture of the other brother
At present, the article infobox displays an image which, in my opinion, doesn't show Maurice de Broglie but his brother, Louis. It is, in fact, currently categorized in commons:category:Louis de Broglie, and comparing it to the other images in that category versus those in commons:category:Maurice de Broglie makes the conclusion fairly straightforward. The source for the current image does give the name of the person as "Louis-César-Victor-Maurice de Broglie", Maurice's full name, rather than Louis' "Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond", but the handwritten note visible at the bottom of the actual image contains the words "Louis Victor Herzog v. Broglie" and "Nobelpreis 1929", which fit Louis.

I therefore propose that we replace the current image with either the detail from the 1921 Solvay Conference group shot (used in the French Wikipedia article) or the 1932 drawing by Marcel Baschet. Though we generally prefer photos to works of art in articles about persons, this one is rather blurred, so I lean towards using the drawing. Favonian (talk) 16:20, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yep, I agree the current image needs to be replaced. Not too fussed on which of the other two we use, but I also think the drawing is better than the photo. Jenks24 (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! In view of this resounding consensus, I have changed the picture. Favonian (talk) 18:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)