Gérard Toulouse, a life of discovery and commitment

Gérard Toulouse, who died in the summer of 2023 at the age of 83, had been a member of the Physics Department of the ENS from 1976 until his retirement.

He has been a very successful and innovative scientist at a time of transition in theoretical physics from fundamental issues of microphysics to statistical problems posed by the behavior of condensed matter and other fields. Gérard Toulouse brought a somewhat unexpected and deep idea borrowed from abstract mathematics to classify defects in condensed matter. Relying on bold extensions of concepts of condensed matter physics, he solved very hard problems in the field of complexity like spin glasses and even the behavior of neural networks, opening so completely new paths.

In tribute to Gérard Toulouse, a special issue of the Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences has just been published. The authors of the contributions have all been greatly influenced by Gérard Toulouse’s work. Several of them were close collaborators of his.

Ref.: Bernard Derrida; Marc Mézard; Jean-Pierre Nadal; Yves Pomeau (éd.). Gérard Toulouse, a life of discovery and commitment, Comptes Rendus. Physique, Volume 25 (2024) no. S4,  doi : 10.5802/crphys.sp.1.

More: https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/physique/item/CRPHYS_2024__25_S4/

Corresponding author : Jean-Pierre Nadal
Contact communication : L’équipe de communication