The large COPS delegation Maël, Niels, Bert, Joost, Timon, Willem, and Julia Rocha (COPS extraordinaire from LPMMC, Grenoble) recently went on a “field trip” to Paris, to visit the Langevin Institute and to participate in the GdR Complexe workshop (all housed in the IPGP building).

The COPS team in front of the IPGP building.

Entrance via the court, thanks to a Langevin guest-scientist 🙂

This 5th annual meeting of the GdR Complexe (https://gdrcomplexe.fr/) aims at gathering physicists to discuss wave propagation in disordered, structured or nonlinear media, and to identify emerging questions on the propagation of waves in complex systems in a broad sense. It was inspiring and insightful to see talks on waves from many different perspectives.

Lively discussions at the poster sessions during the GdR Complexe.
We were kindly shown around in the labs of the Langevin Institute that is part of the illustrious engineering school ESPCI (7 Nobelists: Marie (2x!) and Pierre Curie, Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, Georges Charpak) and in turn part of the PSL University. From the tour we got a thorough hold on what their leading research on waves and imaging is about. Some of us even had the occasion to join an experimental collaboration with Langevin colleagues. Lots of new information was acquired, hence it was very inspiring visit. “Grand merci” to all colleagues at the Langevin Institute (notably Sebastien, Claire, Fabrice, …) for receiving us and showing us around!

Fortunately, there were also occasions to visit the amazing sights of Paris.

Last but not least, we enjoyed (as a new COPS tradition?) an enjoyable end-of-the-year dinner, in a pleasant Bretonian restaurant near the Langevin labs (and the ENS.)