New event organised by Les Amis de l’IHES on Wednesday November 26th 2024, 6:30 pm (French time) at IHES.

Kumiko KOTERA, (CNRS-Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris) will give a conference in French, entitled:

“Messengers of the violent Universe”

As genuine paparazzi of the cosmos, astronomers today capture fleeting supernovae, pulsars, black hole coalescences, gamma-ray bursts and other phenomena. These sources have an extraordinary amount of energy, and release not only light, but also cosmic rays, neutrinos and even the gravitational waves, that we can detect since a few years now. In this lecture, we will explore this new field of research: the violent Universe, and the hunt for its multi-messengers. In doing so, I will tell the collective adventure of the GRAND project, that aims at detecting these particles using tens of thousands of antennas deployed in the Gobi Desert and the Argentine pampas.

Registration

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Contact: Ingrid Peeters

New event organised by Les Amis de l’IHES on Wednesday 18 June 2025, 5:30 pm (French time) at IHES.

Elsa VENNAT, (CentraleSupélec) gave an hybrid conference in French entitled:

“Odyssey into the heart of teeth, at the boundary between biology and materials science,
to understand tissues and their pathologies.”

Why is it better to run behind someone? Biological tissues such as bones and teeth are extraordinary materials.
Mechanically, they are highly efficient, whereas their basic constituents are much less so.
Why is it so? Because they are structured on several levels.What’s more, these tissues perform multiple functions and are constantly evolving.For example, bone tissue adapts to the stresses it undergoes thanks to sensitive cells!
Teeth, on the other hand, evolve but do not regenerate naturally, unlike bones. Nevertheless, cells similar to those of bone tissue have produced them:How are teeth formed? How are dental tissues formed? How do tissues react to externalaggressions? How does biology affect the structure and properties of teeth in diseases
such as the “brittle bone disease”?

The conference will be followed by a musical interlude with Alexandra KORTCHEMSKI (piano) in the foyer of the Centre de conférences Marilyn et James Simons.

Please note: exceptionally, in-person registrations will be limited to 40 people.

Contact: Ingrid Peeters

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Wednesday April 9th, 2025 at 5:30 pm (French Time) at IHES

Andrea ZOIA (CEA) gave a conference in French in hybrid format, entitled:

«The Chicago Piles, a scientific adventure that changed the world »

What happened on December 2, 1942, under the bleachers of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field stadium forever marked the history of mankind: by removing the last control bar and thus starting the “Chicago Pile”, Enrico FERMI and his colleagues demonstrated the feasibility of a controlled chain reaction. Thus they gave birth to the “nuclear age” of energy, just four years after the discovery of fission (December 1938). The vision of these pioneers had a lasting impacton the development of nuclear reactor technologies.

Registration

Zoom link to the conference:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82899632386?pwd=y8ITyDbPEXYhOLVSF8Tsad3CiXXc7r.1

Contact : Ingrid Peeters

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Tuesday January 21st, 2025 at 5:30 pm (French Time) at IHES

Cécile MICHEL Research Director at CNRS and Professor at Hamburg University, gave a conference (in French) in hybrid format, entitled:

“The origins of writing:
what can we learn from cuneiform writing?”

Cuneiform writing – in the shape of wedges – was the first form
of writing invented in the history of mankind around 3400 BC by the
Sumerians in Mesopotamia. It was used for almost 3500 years to transcribe
a dozen languages using different systems, proving to be extremely flexible.
Nearly a million cuneiform texts have been discovered since the mid-19th
century, thanks to the excellent preservation capacity of clay tablets.

Cécile Michel, an assyriologist at the CNRS, has built up a vast knowledge of this script.

This presentation was followed by a musical moment with Alexandra Kortchemski who performed works by Bach and Chopin.

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

Les Amis de l’IHES hosted a special evening dedicated to Maryam Mirzakhani on Wednesday, October 16th, with a screening (in French) of the documentary, partly shot in Iran, “Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani” (Zala films); it was followed by a discussion with the film’s director, George Csicsery.

Mirzakhani, who became the first woman to win the Fields Medal in 2014, is regarded as one of the most brilliant mathematicians of her time. Mirzakhani, is particularly known for her contributions to topology and geometry, especially in the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces. Tragically, she passed away in 2017.

The film can be ordered here.

New event organised by Les Amis de l’IHES on Thursday 13 June 2024, 6:00 pm (French time) at IHES.

Amandine AFTALION, (CNRS, Centre d’analyse et de mathématiques sociales, EHESS) gave a conference in French, entitled:

“Science at the service of athletes’ performance”

Why is it better to run behind someone?
How can you best adjust your speed to achieve the best time?
It all depends on the effort provided, the energy expended and one’s motivation.
Human beings are not robots and their movements are controlled by their brain.

Amandine Aftalion will address to these questions and a few others (like: Why does a golf ball have dimples? Why does one swim better slightly underwater? ) using notions of physics and mathematics presented in a simple and enjoyable way, allowing us to better understand some of the rules to improve the sporting performance of athletes and your own.

The conference will be followed by a friendly drink and a signing of Amandine AFTALION’ s book published in 2003 (CNRS editions):
« Be a champion, 40 facts you didn’t know about sports and science »

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Contact: Ingrid Peeters

Cédric Villani (IHES & Université Lyon 1) gave a conference organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Thursday, March 21, 2024, at 6 pm:

« Blaise Pascal, la mathématique au cœur de l’humanité »  

The Philosophes des Lumières were tempted to drive Blaise Pascal into a corner, portray him as a mad genius, and avoid taking into account his disturbing vision of the world and of knowledge. However, the torments of the twentieth century and recent advances in science have made him a precursor in many areas, such as his passion for the relationship between automaticity and reflection. In retrospect, he appears to be the only mathematician of his time to reflect all the facets of this discipline, including its economic side, with an adventure that made him the first entrepreneur in the “tech” industry.

Let’s explore some of his still fascinating facets.

Watch the conference:

Contact: Ingrid Peeters

Marleen Temmerman, obstetrician and WHO expert, gave a conference (in French) entitled:

“Why are Pregnancy and Childbirth still so deadly?”

According to a recent update from WHO, worldwide every two minutes a woman dies in childbirth, totalling 800 women every day or 287,000 women annually. Why, after almost 30 years since ICPD and Beijing Declaration and numerous other declarations, commitments, and reaffirmations, is global health failing on women and girls, and on gender equity? What is holding back governments and institutions from realising their commitments?

The need for transformational shift on gender equity in global health is urgent. For it to happen, we need to start by understanding the supremacies, hierarchies and powers that create and enable the structures in global health and unearth the dynamics these structures operate within.

Marleen Temmermann has presented the causes of maternal mortality in the world and the possible keys to address the problem.

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Contact : Ingrid Peeters

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Tuesday October 3rd, 2023, 6:00 pm (French time) at IHES

Claudia SILVA, an anthropologist, photographer and videographer, and Oscar GARCIA-PRADA, a geometer holding a research Chair at the Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas (CSIC, Madrid) gave a joint conference (in French) as part of the photograph exhibition:

“Kolam: An Ephemeral Women´s Art of South India”

Strolling through the streets of South India, one can have the surprise to find beautiful geometrically-inspired designs on the ground, made from rice flour. This ephemeral art form, known as Kolam, is practiced every morning by women in the Tamil Nadu state at the entrance of their homes.

In her talk, Claudia SILVA presented some aspects and ideas on the beautiful South Indian tradition of Kolam. She discussed some of the anthropological aspects of Kolam and the relation to ephemeral art, education and women cultural practices.

Oscar GARCIA-PRADA then explored some of the connections of Kolam with geometry, graph theory, number theory, fractals and computer science.

The conference was followed by a friendly drink, during which participants discovered an exhibition showing photographs of Kolam by Claudia Silva.

The replay of the conference (in French) can be watched here.

Download the poster

Contact : Ingrid Peeters

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Wednesday March 31, 2023 at 6:00 pm (French Time) at IHES

Etienne Ghys (ENS -CNRS Lyon researcher, Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences) gave a conference (in French) entitled:

“A brief history of the soccer ball”

What we like about soccer balls is more often to kick them than to examine their seams.
However, not all soccer balls behave in the same way and, if you look closely, they are often very different.
Étienne Ghys first observes them as a geometrician and questions the secrets of their design: how does one build an object as close as possible to a sphere? Although they share a common shape, why do soccer balls follow different trajectories?

Next event on Tuesday October 3rd 2023,  17H00 with Claudia SILVA, photographer, and Oscar GARCIA-PRADA, mathematician.

This shared conference is organized as part of the opening of the photography exhibition on the Kolam designs.

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Friday March 14, 2023 at 5:30 pm (French Time) at IHES

Jacques-Deric Rouault, researcher in evolutionary biology and former CNRS researcher gave a conference (in French) entitled:

“The Seven Daughters of Eve”

The analysis of successive mutations of mitochondrial DNA, transmitted by mothers, has shown that Europeans are descending from 7 women (The Seven Daughters of Eve of Brian Sykes), and that the world’s population is structured in about 40 lineages.

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Next event on Wednesday, May 31st 2023  at  6:00 pm with Etienne GHYS (ENS Lyon, Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences) : “The Little History of Soccer Ball”.

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Friday November 18, 2022 at 5:00 pm (French Time) at IHES

Cécile MICHEL Research Director at CNRS and Professor at Hamburg University, will give gave a conference (in French) in hybrid format, entitled:

“Business women, weavers and spouses: the life of Assyrian women 4000 years ago”

About 4,000 years ago, Assyrian merchants established a trading post in the ancient city of Kaneš in Central Anatolia. Their history is known from clay tablets on which they wrote. The voice of Tarām-Kūbi, an Assyrian woman who corresponded with her brother and husband who settled in Kaneš, takes us back in time.

Cécile MICHEL, Research Director at CNRS and Professor at Hamburg University will introduce the film “Ainsi parle Tarām-Kūbi. Correspondances assyriennes” that she dedicated to this woman. This presentation will be followed by a musical interlude.

Registration to attend online
Registration to attend in person

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)