The association “Les Amis de l’IHES” will organise a conference on May 24 2018 at 5pm, at the Marilyn and James Simons Conference Centre.

Hugo Duminil-Copin (IHES) will give a talk entitled:

« What is a random path: from the Avogadro’s number to macromolecules? ».

In this talk several questions will be addressed: How do we build a random path? What happens if we force this way to never go back through the same place? And in what way can a physical and mathematical theory of such objects enlighten us on the number of atoms in matter, or on the spatial localization of a polymer??

The talk will be followed by a musical interlude. Paloma Kouider will play piano pieces by F. Schubert, A. Dvorak, W. A. Mozart, F. Mendelssohn, R. Schumann, J. Brahms L. V. Beethoven.

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 poster

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

Pierre Cartier (IHES) will give a talk titled:

« Bruno Pontecorvo : science and espionage ?  ».

In this talk he will present the history of Bruno Potecorvo one of the “Via Panisperna boys”, a group a young physicists led by Enrico Fermi in Rome, between 1929 and 1938. Through Pierre Cartier’s words we will be able to follow Bruno Potecorvo along his journeys in Europe and in North America, then in Russia, during the years of World War II and of the Cold War. Pierre Cartier will help us answering a question that after all these years remains open: was Bruno Pontecorvo a soviet spy? Pierre Cartier believes not.

Bruno Pontecorvo is known for his studies on neutrinos, which are elementary particles interacting very weakly, therefore hard to detect, and especially for having predicted their oscillation.

The talk will be followed by a musical interlude. Bertrand Maury will play piano pieces by W.A. Mozart, F. Chopin, D. Chostakovitch and M. Ravel.

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 is organizing a new conference, targeted to a general audience, which will take place on Thursday November 30th at 5pm, in the Marilyn and James Simons Conference Centre at IHES.

Jacques Livage, a chemist and the holder of the Condensed Matter Chemistry Chair at Collège de France, and a member of the French Academy of Science, will give a conference titled:

“Bio-inspired materials: from the art of fire to soft chemistry”.

In his talk, he will explain how obsrving nature allowed to develop a soft chemistry, so called to highlight the contrast with the high temperatures that often characterize the making of modern materials. The “bio-inspired” materials that these techniques allow to obtain have interesting properties that open possibilities in the domain of bio-technologies.

The talk will be followed by a musical interlude. Louis Abraham will play piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven and Frédéric Chopin.

Contact : Ingrid Peeters (01 60 92 66 64)

Registration is free but required: amisihes@ihes.fr

Conference poster

The conference will be in French only.

The association Les Amis de l’IHES organises a new cultural event that will take place at the Institute on Thursday, May 4th.

The evening will start at 5pm with a general interest conference given by Anne-Sandrine Paumier, a post-doc at IHES who studies the history of mathematical sciences, particularly at the Institute. On this occasion, Anne-Sandrine will talk about the different aspects that lead Léon Motchane, the founder of IHES, to choose the Bois-Marie as the ideal place for the temple of mathematics that IHES has been since its very foundation. The conference will be in French.

A piano interlude will follow, when Paloma Kuider will play W. Byrd, L. V. Beethoven, F. Chopin and L. Janacek.

Refreshments will be offered to the participants at the end.

To register, please contact Ingrid Peeters (peeters@ihes.fr) before April 30th and specify the number of people you will come with.

A new conference organised by Les Amis de l’IHES will take place on Thursday 9 March at 6pm, in the Marylin and James Simons Conference Centre.

Frédéric Barbaresco, representative of the KTD Board Processing, Computing & Cognition of THALES LAND & AIR SYSTEMS, will talk about “The digital radar or the elementary geometrical structures of electromagnetic information”, and he will develop the of the geometrical structures hidden in radar signals and of their affinity with mathematical tools such as the geometry of metric spaces and symplectic geometry.

The presentation will be followed by a musical interlude where Bertrand Maury will play at the piano some pieces composed by Julien Koszul, the mathematician Jean-Louis Koszul’s grandfather, who will be mentioned by Frédéric Barbaresco for his important intuitions. Bertrand Maury will also play some pieces composed by C. Saint-Sens, G. Fauré and A. Roussel.

Contact : Ingrid Peeters (0160 92 66 64) Entrée libre sur inscription : amisihes@ihes.fr

« Ondes gravitationnelles et trous noirs binaires »

Les ondes gravitationnelles et les trous noirs sont deux des prédictions les plus novatrices de la théorie de la Relativité Générale d’Einstein. Ces deux prédictions sont apparues dès la découverte de la théorie en 1916. Il a cependant fallu une cinquantaine d’années de développements théoriques pour commencer à appréhender leur signification physique, et cent ans pour certifier leur existence dans le monde réel. On présentera les aspects expérimentaux et théoriques de la récente détection, par les deux interféromètres LIGO de la collaboration LIGO-Virgo, des ondes gravitationnelles émises par les dernières orbites, et la fusion d’un système de deux trous noirs. Cette détection a apporté la première preuve directe de l’existence, à la fois, des ondes gravitationnelles et des trous noirs, et a inauguré une nouvelle façon d’observer l’Univers : l’astronomie des ondes gravitationnelles.

« D’où proviennent nos intuitions mathématiques »

A l’aide de techniques d’imagerie cérébrale, mon laboratoire explore l’origine des compétences mathématiques dans le cerveau. En scannant le cerveau de mathématiciens professionnels, nous avons récemment démontré que la réflexion mathématique fait appel à un circuit reproductible, distinct des aires du langage parlé, mais déjà impliqué chez tous les primates, dans la représentation des nombres, de l’espace et du temps. Le langage mathématique est donc distinct des langues naturelles, et s’appuie sur des intuitions géométriques et numériques très anciennes dans l’évolution.

Contact : Ingrid Peeters (0160 92 66 64) Entrée libre sur inscription : amisihes@ihes.fr