Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday
A story from scientific folklore mentions two principal types of scientists. Scientists of the first type follow a ballistic approach in their research: they go far in a chosen direction, but the area they cover is negligibly small. Scientists of the second type follow a diffusive approach: they try...
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| Datum: | 2013 |
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Інститут фізики конденсованих систем НАН України
2013
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| Schriftenreihe: | Condensed Matter Physics |
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| Online Zugang: | http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/120808 |
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irk-123456789-1208082017-06-14T03:03:21Z Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday Personalia A story from scientific folklore mentions two principal types of scientists. Scientists of the first type follow a ballistic approach in their research: they go far in a chosen direction, but the area they cover is negligibly small. Scientists of the second type follow a diffusive approach: they try to look in different directions covering a broad area but they go nowhere. Fortunately, such categorizations have exceptions. Indeed, amongst our colleagues there are those who manage to go far in their studies, searching answers to different puzzles put by nature, no matter to which specific sub-field of physics these puzzles are traditionally attributed. Bertrand Berche, who this year celebrates his first jubilee is one of them. Statistical physics, conformal field theory, gauge fields in condensed matter physics, cosmology, complex networks, sociophysics, history and philosophy of physics, these are the fields in which he works. At this point on behalf of his friends, colleagues and the community at large, it is appropriate to celebrate Bertrand Berche’s jubilee and to wish him continued success on his way. 2013 Article Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday // Condensed Matter Physics. — 2013. — Т. 16, № 2. — С. 27002: 1–2. — англ. 1607-324X http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/120808 en Condensed Matter Physics Інститут фізики конденсованих систем НАН України |
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Personalia Personalia Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday Condensed Matter Physics |
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A story from scientific folklore mentions two principal types of scientists. Scientists of the first type follow a ballistic approach in their research: they go far in a chosen direction, but the area they cover is negligibly small. Scientists of the second type follow a diffusive approach: they try to look in different directions covering a broad area but they go nowhere. Fortunately, such categorizations have exceptions. Indeed, amongst our colleagues there are those who manage to go far in their studies, searching answers to different puzzles put by nature, no matter to which specific sub-field of physics these puzzles are traditionally attributed. Bertrand Berche, who this year celebrates his first jubilee is one of them. Statistical physics, conformal field theory, gauge fields in condensed matter physics, cosmology, complex networks, sociophysics, history and philosophy of physics, these are the fields in which he works.
At this point on behalf of his friends, colleagues and the community at large, it is appropriate to celebrate Bertrand Berche’s jubilee and to wish him continued success on his way. |
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Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday |
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Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday |
| title_full |
Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday |
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Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday |
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Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday |
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bertrand berche's 50th birthday |
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Інститут фізики конденсованих систем НАН України |
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2013 |
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Personalia |
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http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/120808 |
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Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday // Condensed Matter Physics. — 2013. — Т. 16, № 2. — С. 27002: 1–2. — англ. |
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Condensed Matter Physics |
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2025-07-08T18:36:39Z |
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Condensed Matter Physics, 2013, Vol. 16, No 2, 27002: 1–2
http://www.icmp.lviv.ua/journal
Personalia
Bertrand Berche’s 50th birthday
A story from scientific folklore mentions two principal types of
scientists. Scientists of the first type follow a ballistic approach in
their research: they go far in a chosen direction, but the area they
cover is negligibly small. Scientists of the second type follow a dif-
fusive approach: they try to look in different directions covering a
broad area but they go nowhere. Fortunately, such categorizations
have exceptions. Indeed, amongst our colleagues there are those
who manage to go far in their studies, searching answers to differ-
ent puzzles put by nature, no matter to which specific sub-field of
physics these puzzles are traditionally attributed. Bertrand Berche,
who this year celebrates his first jubilee is one of them. Statistical
physics, conformal field theory, gauge fields in condensed matter
physics, cosmology, complex networks, sociophysics, history and
philosophy of physics, these are the fields in which he works.
Bertrand Berche was born on May 6, 1963 in Metz (France). He
got his master degrees in physics and in applied physics in 1987
fromHenri Poincaré University of Nancy, continuing studies at this
university as a PhD postgraduate student and defended his doctoral dissertation under the supervisorship
of Loïc Turban there in 1991. Since then, he has been working at this university which is now a part of
the University of Lorraine: first as an associate professor (PRAG, maître de conférences, 1990–1998) and
after the habilitation (1997) since 1998 as a professor. In June 2013 Bertrand was promoted to professeur
exceptionelle and although he might be feeling a little old on reaching fifty, he is one of the youngest
professors to achieve this distinction.
However, he started teaching much earlier: in 1981–1990, parallel to the university studies he was
appointed to different school teacher duties (elève-instituteur, instituteur, professeur certifié, agrégé). In
2004–2005 he was an invited researcher at the Center of Advanced Studies of the Venezuelan Institute for
Scientific Studies (IVIC, Caracas, Venezuela) and in 2008–2011 he was president of the Condensed Matter
Section of the National Council of Universities (CNU, France) – a national body in charge of the qualifi-
cation, recruitment and careers of university professors. Since 2008 he is Director of the Department of
Physics and Mechanics at the University of Lorraine.
The principal field of Bertrand Berche’s research, which he initiated already in his PhD thesis and
continues to carry on up till now, concerns phase transitions and criticality in their different incarna-
tions. His studies shed light on the changes in the critical behaviour of various two- and three- dimen-
sional systems under the effect of structural disorder, inhomogeneities, aperiodicity, space confinement.
In this way, the theoretical description of transitions of various type (nematic – isotropic liquid, para-
ferromagnetic, BKT-like) was suggested and verified by careful numerical simulations. More recently he
made important contributions to the theory of spin transport in semiconductors, analyzing compounds
with strong spin-orbital coupling and applying gauge symmetry to characterize topological aspects of
such systems. Mastering the tools of statistical physics and numerical simulations as well as the frame-
work of universality has also lead him to the application of these tools to the systems consisting of many
agents of non-physical nature. In particular, the application of the complex network and percolation the-
ory together with numerical simulations made it possible to perform the analysis of the vulnerability of
public transportation systems of major cities of the world. In another study, he made a statistical analysis
of the evaluation of university research groups as well as an impact of a research group size on the ef-
27002-1
http://www.icmp.lviv.ua/journal
fectiveness of its work. It is needless to say that performing all this impressive work he collaborated with
numerous colleagues and taught the younger generation. These are too numerous just to mention all of
them, but nowadays it can be easily done using scientometric tools, another field of science which also
evolves due to Bertrand Berche’s work!
Many interesting and promising activities in the university and physics community are due to
Bertrand’s initiative or support. These are, just to mention some most important, French-German doc-
toral college where young physicists can do their PhD studies that lead to doctoral diplomas of two dif-
ferent universities (now England and Ukraine will also join this college), Atelier Nancy, which became
already the traditional meeting in Statistical Physics and Low Dimensional Systems; Seminar Cathie Du-
four – an annual interdisciplinary meeting of natural scientists, philosophers, historians of science and
mathematicians which is organized annually in Nancy. He is one of the editors of the “Condensed Matter
Physics” journal and a member of an international advisory board of the series of the Conferences of
the Middle European Cooperation in Statistical Physics (MECO) which has currently become one of the
most prestigious meetings in the field of Statistical Physics in a broader sense, including interdisciplinary
applications. Currently he is involved as a principal partner in several research projects on national and
international scale, closely collaborating with research groups in France, Hungary, Germany, England,
Italy, Ukraine, Russia, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico.
Lecturing in solid state physics to students in Mauritania or organizing summer school in statisti-
cal and mesoscopic physics for young scientists in Venezuela, initiating common diploma studies be-
tween France, Germany, and Luxembourg or co-supervising PhD with partner universities from Eng-
land, Venezuela, Ukraine – whatever Bertrand Berche is occupied with, he always serves for many of
his colleagues and friends as a perfect image of his country: forever young, always active and open to
new challenges, rejecting stereotypes and looking for new ways of tackling the challenging problems. At
this point on behalf of his friends, colleagues and the community at large, it is appropriate to celebrate
Bertrand Berche’s jubilee and to wish him continued success on his way.
27002-2
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