Yann Mambrini

Biography

Yann Mambrini is Director of Research at the CNRS, Doctor of Theoretical Physics, member of the CNRS Scientific Council and of the Scientific Committee of the Theoretical Physics Laboratory at the University of Paris-Saclay. He is also the author of over 100 scientific articles in international peer-reviewed journals, a member of the steering committee of the Science, Planet and Universe (SPU) department at the University of Paris-Saclay, a member of the scientific committee of over 5 international conference cycles, and a reference reviewer in seven prestigious journals. Yann Mambrini is a three-time winner of the CNRS prize for scientific excellence for his research work (2010, 2014 and 2018) and the Société française de physique prize (2006). He is also a professor at the École doctorale de Polytechnique and the École nationale supérieure (ENS).

Conference: Can we measure time?

For as long as man has existed, the passage of time, and therefore its measurement, has been a persistent challenge. What is the link between the shadow cast by a stick on the sand over 5,000 years ago and the atomic clock? How has human genius been able to free itself from the need to observe the sky? He developed the most sophisticated instruments to tame and enclose time in a permanent ticking clock, before making himself an unwitting prisoner of this gilded cage. From Babylon to Princeton, via Paris and London, we travel to better understand what was at stake in this race for precision. From the calculation of longitudes to dominate ocean cartography in the 18th century, the synchronization of city clocks in the 19th century and the advent of the theory of relativity, we’ll be looking at the history of time and its possible measurement.