Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, director of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) from 1994 to 2013 and honorary professor of the Institute since then, was elected president of Les Amis de l’IHES at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the association that took place on May 31, 2022. He succeeds Valentin Poénaru, former professor of mathematics at Université Paris-Sud (now Université Paris-Saclay), who was president of Les Amis de l’IHES from 2009 to 2022. The Board has decided to appoint him honorary president of the association. Jean-Marc Deshouillers, who was himself president of Les Amis de l’IHES, was elected Secretary. The details of the new governance of Les Amis de l’IHES are available here.

The next event organized by the association will take place on Thursday, June 23, 2022 at 5:00 pm (French Time) at IHES in a hybrid format. It will be a conference given by Annie Sainsard-Chanet, former professor at Université Paris-Saclay, entitled “Molecular scissors: a biological revolution” (full information here).

As usual, it will be followed by a musical moment.

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Thursday June 23, 2022 at 5:00 pm (French Time) at IHES

Annie SAINSARD-CHANET gave a conference (in French) in hybrid format, entitled:

Molecular scissors: a biological revolution

“The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, has been awarded for the development of the CrispR-Cas9 or molecular scissors tool. With this tool, it is now possible to modify the genes of any type of cell, with an ease and precision previously unimaginable. The potential of CRISPR opens up unprecedented avenues for research in biology and in the medical field but poses ethical questions, particularly with regards to the manipulation of the genome of the human species.”
The conference was followed by a musical interlude with Christian Ivaldi and Sébastien Mongrand (four hand Piano).

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

On 17 February 2022, Claude P. Bruter gave an hybrid conference (in French) taking place both at IHES and on zoom, entitled:

« Arts and mathematics: on the embodiment of mathematical objects within visual art »

Some works of several personalities of the contemporary artistic and mathematical world will illustrate the recent and prodigious development of techniques and tools of representations of the immense universe of mathematical objects. The primary physical origin of the stratified world of mathematics will be highlighted. In parallel to the evolution in its construction of the building M building housing the mathematical objects, colorful and mostly unusual forms of objects borrowed from number theories, geometric theories, topological and fractal theories will appear.

The conference, accompanied by an exhibition of works from ESMA (European Society for Mathematics and the Arts) was followed by a musical interlude by Noémie Combe (violin) and Thibault Damour (Piano).

Contact : Ingrid Peeters

Link to the works presented at the institute

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Jürg FRÖHLICH (ETH Zürich) gave an hybrid conference (in French)  taking place both at IHES and on zoom, entitled:

“From classical physics to the miracles of the quantum world“

Jürg FRÖHLICH will discuss some aspects of the transition from a classical description of Nature to its quantum description, which many scientists claim is still not complete to their satisfaction. What is certain is that determinism and reversibility of time evolution are no longer in force in the quantum world.

The conference was followed by a musical interlude.

Bella Schütz performed piano works by Mozart, Debussy, Brahms and Scriabine.

Contact : Ingrid Peeters. (01 60 92 66 64)

Download the conference poster

New event organized by Les Amis de l’IHES on Thursday 1 July 2021, 18:30 (French Time)

Amandine CORNILLE (CRCN/CNRS researcher) gave a Zoom videoconference entitled:

“Of apples and men”

“What is the origin and the genetic make-up of the apple varieties you eat nowadays? Despite its economic, cultural and historical importance, the evolutionary histories of the cultivated apple and of its wild relatives still remained unresolved 10 years ago. The use of genetic markers on multiple wild and cultivated populations across Eurasia has since made great strides toward answering this question”.

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

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Slava RYCHKOV‘s conference, “Contre la logique du Lego“, organized by Les Amis de l’IHES, was initially scheduled to take place in person at IHES on Thursday, March 12, 2020. Following the global health crisis, the conference was postponed and took place online on Zoom on October 29, 2020, from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm.

Abstract:

“Traditional physics wants to find elementary constituents in each phenomenon, which are assembled like Lego bricks to build more complicated objects. I want to imagine with you another world, or another physics, which does not use elementary components“.

 

Contact: adminamis@ihes.fr

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Watch the video conference.

Due to the rise of Covid-19 Coronavirus cases in France, the conference by Slava Rychkov scheduled this Thursday 12 March is postponed to a later date.

The association “Les Amis de l’IHES” will organize a conference on Thursday 12 March 2020 at 5pm, in the Marilyn and James Simons Conference Centre.

Slava RYCHKOV (IHES) will give a talk (in French) entitled:

“Contre la logique du Lego”

“Traditional physics wants to find in each phenomenon elementary constituents, which are assembled like Lego bricks to build more complicated objects. I want to imagine with you another world, or another physics, which does not use elementary components.”

The conference will be followed by a musical interlude by Bella SCHÜTZ (piano) who will perform works by J.-S. Bach, and L. van Beethoven.

Free admission on registration (mandatory).

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

Upload the poster

The association “Les Amis de l’IHES” organised a conference on Thursday 7 November 2019 at 5pm, in the Marilyn and James Simons Conference Centre.

Thibault DAMOUR (IHES) gave a talk (in French) entitled:

“Enigmatic Black Holes”

We took stock of the latest developments on Black Holes:
– the story of their discovery as strange conceptual objects within Einstein’s theory;
– their definition and properties;
– the slow recognition of their necessary physical and astrophysical reality;
– the various astrophysical observations that have confirmed their existence and verified some of their properties.
Finally, Thibault Damour ended the conference by questioning the enigmas that black holes still pose today, especially when considering their quantum properties.

The conference was followed by a musical interlude by Louis Abraham (piano) who played works by J.-S. Bach, S. Prokofiev and F. Chopin.

Admission with registration

Contact: amisihes@ihes.fr

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On May 23rd, Alain ASPECT (Institut d’Optique and Ecole Polytechnique) gave a talk titled:

«The photon, wave or particle? Quantum weirdness brought to light».,

discussing the counterintuitive wave-particle duality of light.

The conference was followed by a musical interlude.

Bella Schütz (piano) performed pieces by J.S. Bach, F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, M. Ravel, A. Scriabin and L. van Beethoven.

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

Download the poster

The association “Les Amis de l’IHES” will organise a conference on 13 March at 6pm, in the Marilyn and James Simons Conference Centre.

Nuccio ORDINE (Chaire Alphonse Dupront Paris-Sorbonne — Université de Calabre) will give a talk entitled:

“Praise the slowness:
Speed and utilitarianism, enemies of teaching and research

Fast and utilitarianism are now two words that dominate our society: in schools, universities, scientific research and even in our human relations, we must respect the imperatives of speed and profit. The classics, on the other hand, teach us that slowness and free is necessary in the fields of education, scientific research and human relations.

There will be no musical interlude after this conference.

Please note that the talk will be in French.

Contact : Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

Free entrance upon registration: amisihes@ihes.fr

Download the conference poster

The association “Les Amis de l’IHES” will organise a conference on Thursday 4 April 2019 at 5pm, in the Marilyn and James Simons Conference Centre.

Antoine TRILLER  (IBENS, ENS Ulm) will give a talk entitled:

“Communication between neurons: molecular instability
and memory, from normal to pathological.”

The neurons communicating with each other form networks that are at the origin of the properties of the nervous system. Neurons communicate with each other
between them at junctions called “synapses”. The components of
molecular synapses are unstable and move all the time diffusion processes, which are at the origin of a paradox that we will address: how to ensure stable memory when all the molecules move? We will then discuss the consequences of alterations of these movements in neurodegenerative pathologies, such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease.

The conference will be followed by a musical interlude. Guillaume Lachaussée (piano) et Caroline Apra (soprano) will perform works by  F. Schubert, R. Schumann, G. Fauré, and F. Poulenc.

Contact: Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

Free admission on registration: amisihes@ihes.fr

Upload the poster

The association “Les Amis de l’IHES” will organise a conference on 22 November at 5pm, in the Marilyn and James Simons Conference Centre.

Laure Saint-Raymond (ENS Lyon) will give a talk titled:

“Disorder is almost certain”

Abstract : Using a simple mathematical model, we will explain why disorder increases. We will thus show that the Second Principle of thermodynamics is a consequence of the law of large numbers.

The talk will be followed by a musical interlude. Chenyi Cao will play piano pieces by J.S. Bach, F. Schubert, et S. Rachmaninov.

Please note that the talk will be in French.

Contact : Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

Free entrance upon registration: amisihes@ihes.fr

Download the conference poster