C’était comment la science avant ?

On a accueilli les étudiant·es du DSAA Graphisme Transmédia à l’ENS AAMA pour 1 semaine complète en immersion à l’université.

L’objectif ? Leur raconter comment on faisait de la science avant l’arrivée de l’ordinateur, et qu’ils transposent tout ça dans un fanzine réalisé à 28 mains… sans ordinateur !

Au menu, l’histoire des machines, les techniques de calcul, la publication d’articles, les cahiers de manip, une visite d’un ancien labo… Mais surtout une véritable machine à écrire, des normographes, de la monographie, du papier et des stylos, beaucoup de dessin et d’écriture à la main.

Une semaine riche en découvertes, expérimentations, prototypage rapide, pour un superbe fanzine de 24 pages, imprimé sur place !

Ils ont été tellement efficaces qu’ils ont même eu le temps de monter une mini exposition pour présenter leur travail !

Ce n’est pas un quart d’heure américain, ni celui de politesse ou de célébrité, et certainement pas un mauvais quart d’heure ! Simplement un quart d’heure, soit 15 minutes ou 900 secondes pendant lesquelles Julien Bobroff improvise sur une image quantique tirée au sort.

Le public tire au sort parmi 16 images liées à la quantique,  et le chrono est lancé : à Julien de leur démystifier l’image et de les passionner : anecdotes historiques, découvertes fortuites, expériences délirantes, échanges de lettres, les décennies et les prestigieux noms de chercheurs et chercheuses se bousculent dans ces 15 minutes intenses.

Un format à mi-chemin entre les formats de conférences traditionnelles de 1h et les vidéos ultra courtes sur les réseaux sociaux.

Les quarts d’heure quantiques ont été proposés lors de la Fête de la Science au Musée des Arts et Métiers et à la Scène de recherche de l’ENS Paris-Saclay.

Here is a series of illustrations on quantum physics that are freely usable (Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license for non-commercial use). Feel free to use them to illustrate articles, presentations, courses, etc.

Captured by the Voyager 1 satellite, “Pale Blue Dot” remains the most distant photograph of Earth, taken from nearly 6 billion kilometers away. This image gave its name to our exhibition: nine square posters to tell the story of Earth from new perspectives. The images herebelow are in French, but the pdf file contains all posters in english.

Feel free to download it, print it, and display it!

Ça pollue beaucoup un·e scientifique par rapport au reste de la société ?

“Kim K vs 1000 scientifiques”  est un jeu hyper intuitif qui compare 2 empreintes carbone :
– celle liée à nos activités humaines (faire tourner un hôpital, 1 semaine de Fashion Week…)
– celle de la recherche (faire tourner un labo de chimie, fabriquer un accélérateur de particules…).

Histoire de clarifier un peu la notion d’empreinte carbone et de discuter de l’impact de la recherche.

Bon à savoir : les valeurs sont en “kilotonne équivalent CO2”. Une kilotonne, c’est 1000 tonnes. Et une tonne équivalent CO₂, c’est l’unité de mesure pour évaluer l’impact moyen de tous les gaz à effet de serre sur le réchauffement climatique.

“Ça chauffe chez les scientifiques”, c’est une expo originale sur les scientifiques face à la crise environnementale. Elle existe en grand format, mais on l’a aussi conçue en format nomade, facile à envoyer pour que vous puissiez l’afficher ! Si ça vous intéresse, toutes les infos sont ici.

Pour tout renseignement : laphysiqueautrement@gmail.com 

Museum curator, that’s the new title I’ll be able to add to my resume!

To create this exhibition, I spent four months interning with the La Physique Autrement team:
– finding a theme for the exhibition
– listening to Julien’s physics lectures
– exploring the museum to discover its every nook and cranny
– gaining inspiration by visiting numerous exhibitions
– and, above all, interacting with all the team members.

Then came the time for experimentation. I worked on the media, materials, volumes, illustrations, typography… And I was finally able to find the identity of my exhibition. This was followed by a phase of writing texts, translating the scientific content into drawings, then into volumes, shaping the cubes, and even making paper!

The first cubes were only truly born after the third month. Once the exhibition was completed, I was able to film and photograph it from every angle before showing it to the general public.

Here are some behind-the-scenes photos of this charming journey.

Comment envahir de grands espaces avec de la physique ? En collant des stickers partout !

On vous a mis des fun facts de physique sur des stickers de 10x10cm. Un record absolu !

D’où vient le claquement du fouet ? Quelle est la vitesse la plus lente jamais mesurée ? Vaut-il mieux courir ou marcher sous la pluie ?

Ça marche dans les 2 sens, qu’on tombe sur la réponse ou la question en premier.

Pour que vous les planquiez et que les gens s’amusent à les retrouver pour associer les questions et les réponses.

Ne tardez-pas, faites-les imprimer et collez-en partout, dans les toilettes, les halls d’entrée ou les musées, les wagons du RER B (en demandant l’autorisation avant bien sûr) !

Les fichiers d’impression des stickers sont ci-dessous.

Faites-les faire en noir ou en blanc (ou les deux) sur du vinyle transparent autocollant.

Nous on a confié cette tâche à Signarama Paris 18.

Léna is an illustrator. During her vacations, she enjoys capturing landscapes in her travel sketchbook. Suddenly, an absurd idea comes to mind: what if, instead of a bucolic shoreline or a majestic peak, Léna came to paint… our laboratories?

The challenge is set! Heading to the Faculté des Sciences d’Orsay.

Each day, she will discover a new lab, unusual topics, surprising settings, and scientists a bit surprised to see her settled in among their experiments, with her watercolor and brushes in hand. Each time, she’ll have only three hours to sketch the intimate backstage of research in progress…

Welcome to a travel sketchbook like no other…

Today, I’m at ALTO, the Laboratoire de Physique des 2 Infinis, at the heart of nuclear physics. There, I’m discovering an enormous blue tank wich is named TANDEM. It’s not just a tank, no, this giant is a veritable particle accelerator. It swallows up negative ions to project them at incredible speeds, driven by huge electric fields, with almost 15 million volts. Here, beams of particles are produced with sometimes very rare particles to explore the infinitely small, astrophysics, biology, and even nanotechnology.

How can I put onto paper the power of such a machine, and above all, these incrediblous accelerations of invisible particles? I have three hours.

This morning I’m arriving at the  Groupe d’Histoire et de Diffusion des Sciences d’Orsay. There are no machine, no scientific instrument yet this is where research is written, exchanged and discussed. Books, notes and pationated discussions are everywhere. The history of mathematics, biology, physics and even teaching are studied here. It is a past and present observations of how practices are formed, how knowledge circulates.

Step by step, I’m understanding that science is also built on ideas and words. The invisible laboratory lives through those who are gathered there.

But how can I draw it?

It’s up to me!

Today, I’m discovering the Institut Diversité, Écologie et Évolution du Vivant. I’m coming into large greenhouses where insects and plants are the stars. Giant maize, melon shoots, beans, wild apple trees and other fascinating specimens…

Here we study ecology, genetics and the mysterious mechanisms of the living genome. How do plants adapt to environmental change? How do they interact with insects? What about transgenic plants? These are just some questions that scientists are trying to answer in this strange laboratory. 

Now it is my turn to use my tools to reveal the superpowers of life.

New day, new setting: I’m discovering ELYSE, a unique electron accelerator at the Institut de Chimie Physique. It is just ten metres long but it is nothing like the usual particle accelerators. And yet it opens the door into a new world for chemists.

Here, the very first moments of chemical reactions are tracked, those last just a few picoseconds. A laser triggers tiny electrons packets that are sent onto the samples. Scientists and experimenters analyse then the light emitted, like they are leafing through a photo album: image by image, the story of the chemical reaction is revealed… This is a place where time can be read through light.

Now it’s my turn to capture these fleeting moments.

Today, I’m taking a look at the MET, the Transmission Electron Microscope used by the Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d’Orsay. It doesn’t look like an optical microscope at first sight. Here, this is not light, but electrons wich are propelled into samples at very high speed through an ultra-high vacuum column! Thanks to their quantum properties, they interact with atoms, enabling observations to be made from the diameter of a hair to the scale of a nanometre. I am diving inside a cell, into the heart of a virus, among interstellar particles or into the study of metals and their deformations.

How can I reveal the power of such an instrument with my simple brushes? It’s up to me.

This morning I’m visiting the Laboratoire des Mathématiques d’Orsay, located in a green setting. Here, the blackboard is the star, even in the gardens!

Harmonic analysis, algebraic geometry, topology… these mysterious subjects seem to reveal a fascinating diversity.

A few equations remain on the walls, the last traces of lively debates. The spirit of exchange animates this place. Are mathematics an universal language? Yes, but it is also a collective adventure.

Now I’m trying to represent these peaks of abstraction…

New place, new rooms: here I am at the Institut des Sciences Moléculaires d’Orsay. In front of me, pumps, lenses, lasers, and even an ultra-high vacuum tunnel are piled up… This is not just one, but five cutting-edge experiments that are taking place in this machine. And it’s not just about shining but sending flashes of light so incredibly briefly that they reveal the mysteries of matter on unprecedented scales!

Now I have to solve a mystery: how can I make visible something that lasts just only a millionth of a billionth of a second?

Time to let colors taking this moment.

This morning, I’m discovering the Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay. In this lab, I’m surrounded by an incredible array of high-tech prosthetics, motors, robotic arms, cameras, and detectors. This is a complete toolkit to better understand the brain and its behavior.

That’s the real challenge here: improving the quality of life for people with prosthetics and reducing their pain.

But how can I capture an experiment trying to explore what is the most intimate to us: our brain?

Time to put mine to work!

Today, I’m discovering the WILDER platform at the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Sciences du Numérique.

I’m standing in front of 75 high-definition screens displaying the most incredible images. They are ready to be explored and analyzed in the finest detail, from molecules to works of art.

Suddenly, I’m projected into the cosmos. The very recent images from the Euclid satellite are appearing in front of me… A place where the smallest and the largest are revealed in every detail.

Now, it’s my turn to reveal the beauty of the Universe.

The final stop of my journey takes me to the Laboratoire des Géosciences Paris-Saclay. I’m seeing incredible rocks in every corners: granite, limestone, sandstone, basalt and many others. Here, samples are ready to be analysed to reveal the mysterious secrets of Earth.

One instrument catches my eye: the laser granulometer. This tool measures particle sizes and tells us about the distribution of clays and sands. One way of unlocking the mysteries of our subsoils…

It’s up to me to find out what secrets lie beneath our feet.