Bernard D'Espagnat

French theoretical physicist, philosopher of science, and author, best known for his work on the nature of reality. D'Espagnat remained troubled by the scant attention most physicists paid to the interpretational questions raised by quantum mechanics.

His books include Conceptions of Contemporary Physics (1965), À la recherche du réel, le regard d’un physicien (In Search of Reality, the Outlook of a Physicist, 1979), Le réel voilé, analyse des concepts quantiques (Veiled Reality, An Analysis of Present-Day Quantum Mechanical Concepts, 1994), On Physics and Philosophy (published in France in 2002 as Traité de physique et de philosophie), and Candide et le physicien (Candide and the Physicist, 2008, written with Claude Saliceti).

He died on 1 August 2015, aged 93, in Paris.