Archive for Jussieu
Straßburger Abenrot
Posted in pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags ABC, Alsace, bitcoin, blockchain, city walk, day trip, German, habilitation, high speed train, homonym, Ill River, jatp, jury, Jussieu, Petite France, Saint Paul's church, Strasbourg, sunset on April 27, 2026 by xi'an
Paul Deheuvels (1948-2026)
Posted in Books, Mountains, University life with tags Bayesian Choice, Bayesian statistics, Book, bouldering, Bourg-la-Reine, climatosceptic, climbing accident, Club de l'Horloge, Economica, empirical process, Fontainebleau, functional estimation, Jussieu, Monsanto, obituary, Paris, Paris 6, Paul Deheuvels, Que sais-je?, The Bayesian Choice, thumb, transgenic corn, UMPC, Université Pierre et Marie Curie on February 5, 2026 by xi'an
I just learned that Paul Deheuvels died last week. He was head of the statistics department at Université Pierre & Marie Curie when I was a lecturer there (1987-1992). And a professor of statistics and probability there for his entire career, from 1974 to 2013. While we were working on completely different topics, and had divergent political views, we kept an amicable connection throughout the years, as we were living close enough to meet once in a while at the local farmers’ market and have a quick chat. When I was considering my options for pursuing a PhD, while writing a Master thesis on commutative Lie algebras with his father, René Deheuvels, he was one of the people who offered to supervise me (on a topic related with empirical processes, which were his forte). Later, he suggested I wrote a very short introduction to Bayesian statistics in the Que sais-je? collection (where he published three books) and, when my manuscript was found too theoretical, he proposed to publish an expanded version in the Economica collection, which ended up being the French version of The Bayesian Choice. I also remember a very kind email he sent me while I was recovering from my climbing accident, in 2013, as a fellow climber. (For a long while, he would drive to Fontainebleau once or twice a week for bouldering.) As alluded (to) above, Deheuvels’ political views were very conservative, with a proximity to the far-right Club de l’Horloge and a mix of vieille France traditionalism and libertarianism positions. For sure, he never was shy from embarking in controversies, from defending Allègre’s climato-scepticism to backing Séralini’s controversial study on the cancerogenic effects of Mosanto’s transgenic maize.
Claire Voisin interviewed in Nature
Posted in Books, University life with tags Alexander Grothendieck, algebraic geometry, base, Claire Voisin, CNRS, Crafoord Prize, Hodge conjecture, Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu, interview, Jussieu, Kodaira problem, Millennium Prize Problems, Nature, Paris Sorbonne Université, philosophy of sciences, René Descartes, set theory on April 8, 2024 by xi'an
Mathematics gets rarely featured in Nature, as this is not the most obvious outlet for mathematical discoveries, hence it is exceptional to see Claire Voisin interviewed in the 08 Feb issue, following her receiving the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics and Astronomy “for outstanding contributions to complex and algebraic geometry, including Hodge theory, algebraic cycles, and hyperkähler geometry”. She is actually the very first female mathematician to received this prize, although she states this has no particular significance for her.
“In French schools at the time, there was the fashion of ‘modern mathematics’, which was an attempt to teach abstract mathematics, such as set theory. We had to do completely crazy things, like compute the development of numbers in base 2.”
The above statement puzzled me as, given that I am the same age as Claire Voisin, I do not remember doing `modern mathematics’ in high school but rather in primary school, with exposure to sets theory and functions, incl. injectivity and surjectivity, and indeed to different bases, which I found quite fun (rather than crazy) at the time. She also mentioned that, while in preparatory school, she was more interested in philosophy than mathematics, which was almost the case for me as well, in that I would have switched from the maths+physics program there to a program mixing philosophy and maths, had it existed at the time.
re-MCM’d
Posted in Statistics, University life with tags adaptive MCMC, alma mater, badge, conference, doubly intractable posterior, Grande Mosquée de Paris, HMC, Jardin des Plantes, Jussieu, MCM 2023, parallel tempering, Paris, PDMP, slice sampler, Sorbonne Université, U-turn on June 28, 2023 by xi'an
When I entered the classroom on the Jussieu campus where the Monday morning session on PDMP was taking place, some friends told me a badge was waiting for me at the registration desk of MCM 2023! Most surprisingly since I had received a deregistration message a few weeks earlier. Great PDMP session with non-reversible tempering (warning: some PDMPs were harmed in the tempering process), scaling PDMPs for highly anisotropic targets, a PDMP form of reversible jump (with sticky floors!) and a more adaptive version of no-U turn via… PDMPs. After lunch at the nearby Grande Mosquée de Paris (I had not visited since… 1974!), I attended the slice sampler session, where mileage varied imho. With a take on doubly-intractable targets that did not seem to relate to the existing literature.
de-MCM’d
Posted in Statistics, University life with tags conference, France, ISBA 2018, Jussieu, MCM 2023, Paris, Sorbonne Université, University of Edinburgh on June 9, 2023 by xi'an
This morning I received a message from the MCM 23 conference organisers that my registration [submitted two months ago] was declined for lack of room! I wonder why the organisers did not opt for broadcasting in a second amphitheater, as was done for ISBA in Edinburgh.
Unfortunately, we have attained the maximal capacity of the amphitheater where the plenary talks will take place (this is the largest amphitheater that one can rent on the Jussieu campus). This amphitheater capacity was significantly larger than the number of attendees of previous MCM conferences. We feel really sorry that we can’t confirm your registration to MCM2023.
Which is pretty frustrating given that the program is of the highest standards and that many friends, coauthors, students, of mine’s are giving talks there. Being a local I’ll try to gatecrash some talks, of course, but I would not bet on my chances, unless I can borrow a badge!
