The Henri Poincaré Institute (or IHP for ''Institut Henri Poincaré'') is a mathematics research institute part of

Sorbonne University Sorbonne University (french: Sorbonne Université; la Sorbonne: 'the Sorbonne') is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon ...

, in association with the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science Basic research, also called pure research o ...

(CNRS). It is located in the 5th arrondissement of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, on the Sainte-Geneviève Hill.

History

Just after World War I, mathematicians

Émile Borel Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel (; 7 January 1871 – 3 February 1956) was a French mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Math ...

in France and

George Birkhoff George David Birkhoff (March 21, 1884 – November 12, 1944) was an American mathematician best known for what is now called the ergodic theorem. Birkhoff was one of the most important leaders in American mathematics in his generation, and during ...

in the United States persuaded French and American sponsors (

Edmond de Rothschild Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (Hebrew: הברון אברהם אדמונד בנימין ג'יימס רוטשילד - ''HaBaron Avraham Edmond Binyamin Ya'akov Rotshield''; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French memb ...

and the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

respectively)Rockefeller and the internationalization of mathematics between two World Wars exte imprimé: documents and studies for the social history of mathematics in the 20th century / Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze. - Basel ; Boston ; Berlin : Birkhäuser, cop. 2001. - 1 vol. (XIII-341 p.) : fig., ill., carte ; 24 cm. - (Science networks historical studies ; volume 25). - Bibliogr. p. 07318. Index. (rel.). - (rel.)] to fund the building of a centre for lectures and international exchanges in mathematics and theoretical physics. The Institute was inaugurated on 17 November 1928 and named after French mathematician

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The ...

(1854–1912). The institute's objective has been to promote mathematical physics, and it soon became a meeting place for the French scientific community. In the 1990s, the IHP became a thematic institute modeled on Berkeley's

Mathematical Sciences Research Institute The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), is an independent nonprofit mathematical research institution on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Califo ...

(MSRI).

Organization

The IHP's governing board has about 35 members. There are no permanent researchers other than the director and the deputy director. From 2009 to 2017, the institute was headed by mathematician

Cédric Villani Cédric Patrice Thierry Villani (; born 5 October 1973) is a French politician and mathematician working primarily on partial differential equations, Riemannian geometry and mathematical physics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010, and he w ...

, Fields Medals laureate in 2010, as director. French cosmologist Jean-Philippe Uzan was his deputy director. Since 2018, Sylvie Benzoni is the institute's director. Together with the

Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques The Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS; English: Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies) is a French research institute supporting advanced research in mathematics and theoretical physics. It is located in Bures-sur-Yvette, jus ...

(IHES), the

Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques The Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques (CIRM) is a mathematics research institute associated with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Société Mathématique de France (SMF). It is located in Luminy, Marse ...

(CIRM) and the Centre International de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées (CIMPA) it is a member of the Carmin LabEx (Laboratory of Excellence), which aims at facilitating exchanges between mathematicians by building infrastructures for pooling skills and information. Institut Henri Poincaré - UMS 839

Scientific activities

As a venue for national and international mathematical exchanges, the Institute organizes "thematic quarters" (three-month programmes on specific topics), intensive short-time collaborations, PhD training courses, conferences and seminars in mathematics or related fields, such as physics, biology or computer science. Topics are selected by the IHP's Scientific Steering Committee. The IHP welcomes around 11,000 mathematicians each year. In 2013, the Institute launched the "Poincaré Chair", a research program designed to foster the international careers of young researchers. Numerous seminars or series of lectures take place at the IHP, such as the Bourbaki and Bourbaphy Seminars, the History of Mathematics Seminar, as well as some more specialised lectures in algebra, number theory, mathematical physics and elliptic curves. The institute also publishes four international scientific journals, the Annals of the Institut Henri Poincaré (''Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics'', ''Probability and Statistics'', ''Non Linear Analysis'', and ''Combinatorics, Physics and their Interactions'').

General public

The Institute co-organises and sponsors numerous, scientific and cultural events aimed at the general public (2011 : Mathematics, a Beautiful Elsewhere at the Fondation Cartier ; 2011 : A tribute to Evariste Galois ; 2012 : Centenary of Henri Poincaré's Death...). It has close ties with the associations and societies for the promotion of mathematics housed in its premises.

Mathematical designs

The library of the Henri Poincaré institute holds a collection of some 400 mathematical models and designs that come in different materials: glass, plastic, cardboard, wire, sewing thread on a rigid frame, plaster. This collection, which started with a donation by Martin Shilling, has been enhanced over the years, notably by wooden models built between 1912 and 1914 by lecturer Joseph Caron of the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

Head of Institut Henri Poincaré

* 1928–1948:

*1949–1975:

Paul Montel Paul Antoine Aristide Montel (29 April 1876 – 22 January 1975) was a French mathematician. He was born in Nice, France and died in Paris, France. He researched mostly on holomorphic functions in complex analysis. Montel was a student of Émile ...

*1975–1984:

Charles Pisot Charles Pisot (2 March 1910 – 7 March 1984) was a French mathematician. He is chiefly recognized as one of the primary investigators of the numerical set associated with his name, the Pisot–Vijayaraghavan numbers. He followed the classical p ...

*1984–1985:

Pierre Lelong Pierre Lelong (14 March 1912 Paris – 12 October 2011)
at the académie des sciences was a Fr ...

*1986–1987:

Bernard Teissier Bernard Teissier (; born 1945) is a French mathematician and a member of the Nicolas Bourbaki group. He has made major contributions to algebraic geometry and commutative algebra, specifically to singularity theory, multiplicity theory and va ...

*1988–1989:

Jacques Stern Jacques Stern (born 21 August 1949) is a cryptographer, currently a professor at the École Normale Supérieure. He received the 2006 CNRS Gold medal. His notable work includes the cryptanalysis of numerous encryption and signature schemes, th ...

* 1990–1994:

Pierre Grisvard Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

* 1994–1995:

Joseph Oesterlé Joseph Oesterlé (born 1954) is a French mathematician who, along with David Masser, formulated the ''abc'' conjecture which has been called "the most important unsolved problem in diophantine analysis In mathematics, a Diophantine equation ...

* 1999–2008:

Michel Broué Michel Broué (born 28 October 1946) is a French mathematician. He holds a chair at Paris Diderot University. Broué has made contributions to algebraic geometry and representation theory. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical ...

* 2009–2017:

* 2018–present: Sylvie Benzoni

References

External links

IHP welcome
Institute homepage

(in French, 1993) {{DEFAULTSORT:Institut Henri Poincare Mathematical institutes Research institutes in France International research institutes French National Centre for Scientific Research Research institutes established in 1928