Pierre-Christmas Mayaud , born in 1923, died in 2006, was a priest Jésuite, geophysicist and historian of sciences. He accepted the money medal of CNRS in 1979, as well as the price Fernand Holweck of the Academy of Science in 1983.

As a geophysicist, Pierre-Christmas Mayaud in particular studied the components of the temporal variations of the external geomagnetic field. According to Jean-Louis Mouël and Vincent Courtillot, old directing and director of the IPGP, members of the Academy of Science, " Pierre-Christmas Mayaud was the researcher who had the vastest knowledge, thorough, of the complex superposition of various phenomena which is the geomagnetic field of origin externe" ( Le Monde , August 18th, 2006).

From 1978, it devotes to the request the Society of Jesus to the history and the philosophy of sciences. It will become one of the largest specialists in " the business Galileo " , continuing during twenty years a monumental work, leading in 2005 to the publication of the work the Conflict enters new astronomy and the Scriptures in XVIe and XVIIe centuries: one moment of the history of the ideas around the business Galileo , a sum of more than 3000 pages crowned by a price of the Academy of Science morals and political.