Summer 2010 Research Travel Update: France

Summer 2010 Research Travel Update: France
l-r: Prof. Daniel Gauthier, Prof. Stephanos Venakides, Prof. Glenn Edwards
 

Prof. Dan Gauthier delivered a contributed oral presentation at the 11th Experimental Chaos and Complexity Conference in Lille France on June 1, 2010. The conference included over 180 participants from 31 countries and focused on a wide range of nonlinear dynamics problems, where experimental results were discussed as well as new theoretical insights and how they apply to experiments.

His talk was on "Observation of chaos in small networks of Boolean-like logic circuits," a project that is a collaborative effort between researchers at the University of Maryland and several from Duke physics, inclluding post-docs Dr. Hugo Cavalcante and Dr. Rui Zhang, graduate students Zheng Gao and Seth Cohen, and Prof. Joshua Socolar. Dr. Lou Pecora, one of the conference organizers, snapped one photo of Dan, although the lighting in the auditorium was not optimum for pictures. The conference social program included a dinner in the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) of Lille in the center of the old part of the city. Dr. Pecora also caught Dan and his spouse, Natasha Bowen at this reception. The evening was fun for all with good French food and wine as well as lively music. The trip was not all work! Dan and Natasha spent some time in Paris both before and after the conference. (It is easiest to fly in and out of Paris and take the high-speed train to Lille).  Before the conference, they met up with Prof. Bob Behringer and his spouse Sue Behringer for a picnic on the Seine River near Notre Dame. Here is a photo of Dan and Natasha from the left bank and Natasha and Sue later on as they were walking around Paris. After the conference, Dan and Natasha met up with Prof. Glenn Edwards and his spouse Anne Edwards, who were in Paris for a year-long sabbatical, and Prof. Stephanos Venakides (Duke Math) who was in Paris for a month at the beginning of a one-year-long sabbatical.  They enjoyed a nice dinner together in the Quartier Latin (1, 2, 3). Surprisingly, as the group was heading to the cafe, they ran into Dr. Robert Bryant, a former professor in Duke Math, who happened to have just arrived in Paris for a week-long math workshop.  It was a very pleasant surprise! During the rest of the visit, Dan and Natasha walked all around Paris, visiting the Louvre, Sacre Coeur (1, 2, 3), the Musee de Cluny, Cimetiere de l'Est dit due Pere Lachaise, and many other sites. Now they are both back in Durham hard at work on their research, hoping to accomplish a lot before classes start again near the end of August.