In this portrait from the Collège de France CourTs series, he presents his research and teaching activities.
Published on 1 February 2021
News
Opening lecture by Prof. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud
Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, visiting professor on the annual Technological Innovation Liliane Bettencourt Chair at the Collège de France, will deliver his opening lecture on February 25, 2021, at 6 pm. This event will take place behind closed doors at the Collège de France, and will therefore not be open to the public, but will be broadcast live on our website.
From statistical physics to the social sciences : the challenges of multidisciplinarity
Jean-Philippe Bouchaud's work brings together statistical physics and the social sciences to shed light on the nature of collective phenomena at play in systems made up of a very large number of variables, the consequences of which, in fields as varied as the economy and health, are also at the heart of public policy. For him, the onset of the great economic crisis of 2008 is a remarkable object of study, demonstrating that the economic system, through a complex interplay of loops, interactions and feedbacks, generates its own instability.
Phase transitions and changes in the state of matter, the collective flight of birds, avalanches and climate change are all phenomena characterized by sudden threshold or emergence effects. While these issues are at the root of the initial difficulty in modeling certain complex natural systems, it is now possible, thanks to the power of statistical physics models, to describe and analyze complex social phenomena, such as the behavior of economic players, business networks or financial markets.
The annual Technological Innovation Liliane Bettencourt Chair at the Collège de France has been supported by the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller since its creation in 2006.
