Supported initiatives
The Fund supports a wide range of initiatives promoting scientific outreach and public engagement.
Fin de la collecte :
Quantum Sensation (April – July 2025)
Both mysterious and unsettling, quantum physics transforms our perception of the world. This exhibition offers a sensory encounter between science and art, inviting visitors to explore the questions raised by this fascinating theory.
Conceived by artist Caroline Delétoille in collaboration with a physicist and a philosopher, the project offers a pictorial and sound immersion that intertwines memory, perception, and scientific experimentation. The works trace a fragmented journey at the crossroads of personal memories and breakthroughs in quantum research.
Visitors are invited to step into the universe of the laboratory through traces and clues collected during the artist’s residencies. The exhibition culminates in a video installation—a poetic traversal of quantum space-time.
Soliton: A New Wave at Maison Poincaré (2025)
The Mechanical Soliton at Maison Poincaré is a unique, interactive installation that makes it possible to observe a fascinating phenomenon: a wave that propagates without distortion. Inspired by a device designed by physicist Thierry Dauxois, this soliton takes the form of a chain of pendulums linked together by a long spring. When one pendulum is set in motion, a wave emerges and travels through the chain without dispersing—making a complex phenomenon visible in a simple, tangible way.
Installed in the “Modeling” space, within the “Spectra and Waves” section, it complements the vibrating strings exhibit dedicated to linear waves. Together, these devices immerse visitors in the world of waves and offer a new perspective on the richness of mathematics and physics.
This installation fully reflects the mission of Maison Poincaré: to provide everyone, regardless of scientific background, the opportunity to understand and marvel at the beauty of science.
The Mechanical Soliton enriches the museum’s permanent collection and helps spark the curiosity of thousands of young visitors, especially those from priority education networks. A new way to experiment, to engage hands-on… and to learn through wonder.
Exhibition By Chance! (September 2024 – March 2025)
The exhibition By Chance! is the result of a partnership between Maison des Mathématiques et de l’Informatique (MMI) in Lyon, Fermat-Science association, and Institut Henri Poincaré (IHP). It features interactive stands that address all sorts of questions about chance.
Visitors are invited to explore a path punctuated with games, applications, challenges, and hands-on experiments. Designed for families and accessible from age 8, the exhibition blends mathematics and computer science, of course, but also economics, psychology, physics, philosophy, biology, and the arts.
After its first presentation at MMI in 2018/2019, the exhibition moved to Fermat Science Space near Toulouse in 2020/2021. In 2022, it was hosted in Alès, in collaboration with the science culture center Eurêk’Alès. In autumn 2023, it will remain in Occitanie, presented at Abbaye de Belleperche from October 3 to November 30. It will then be updated before traveling to Maison Poincaré in 2024.
The exhibition was conceived and produced by MMI in Lyon, with financial support from the Labex MiLyon, from La Française des Jeux through the IHP Endowment Fund, and the Blaise Pascal Foundation.
Exhibition Enter the World of AI (September 2023 – April 2024)
The exhibition Enter the World of AI is the result of a partnership between Fermat-Science association, Maison des Mathématiques et de l’Informatique (MMI) in Lyon, and Institut Henri Poincaré (IHP). It aims to raise awareness of the computerization of contemporary societies, to demystify the world of AI, and to encourage young people to pursue careers in mathematics and computer science.
Accessible to the general public from age 12, the exhibition is both informative and playful, featuring numerous interactive activities.
Enter the World of AI was presented from June 2021 to June 2023 at MMI in Lyon. It will be on display in Paris from September 2023 to April 2024 at Maison Poincaré, in the temporary exhibition space, to mark the opening of this new mathematics museum.
Rulpidon (2023)
Since 2023, a striking sculpture has caught the eye in the Jacqueline Ferrand garden of Maison Poincaré. Conceived by artist Ulysse Lacoste, the sculpture — a two-meter steel volume — was designed for the outdoor space, but above all for visual and physical exploration.
Beyond its poetic appearance, Rulpidon is also a mathematical object. It is a genus-3 surface, a form with three holes that can theoretically be colored so that each region comes into contact with all the others. The sculpture thus becomes an accessible entry point into complex notions of topology, embodied in a concrete, visible, almost tangible object.
Every day, it welcomes many visitors — coming for an exhibition, a school trip, or simply driven by curiosity. It embodies the ambition of Maison Poincaré: to present mathematics as a shared, living human experience.
HOLO-MATH (September 2023)
HOLO-MATH is a set of mixed reality science mediation experiences using Hololens headsets.
Holo-Math integrates virtual 3D elements into the real environment, allowing participants to live immersive learning experiences while staying connected to the outside world. Each session brings together around fifteen people with a science mediator. Through these new forms of visualization and interaction, participants can observe scientific phenomena, “manipulate” mathematical concepts, and at the same time explore the history of science and the latest research.
The very first episode, dedicated to Brownian motion, led to a prototype in 2017, tested for the first time at Palais de la Découverte in October of the same year. This initial episode of Holo-Math will be available by reservation at Maison Poincaré starting in September 2023. A second episode on Artificial Intelligence is currently in preparation.
The HOLO-MATH project brings together a European consortium of companies and research centers. Learn more: http://holo-math.org/index-fr.html
Documentary on Surrealist Artist Man Ray (2019)
Institut Henri Poincaré produced a documentary on the remarkable encounter between Man Ray and the world of mathematics. Lasting 70 minutes, the film retraces Man Ray’s discovery—and through him, Shakespeare’s—of the mathematical models in the IHP collection. The director chose to bring together Man Ray and Shakespeare specialists, mathematicians, and artists, offering multiple entry points and artistic forms (dance, theater, literature, photography, painting, sculpture). The result is a set of mysterious “Shakespearean equations,” through which a wide audience can discover various facets of classical and modern mathematics.
The Endowment Fund contributed to the financing of the documentary with support from Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso, Fondation Daniel Iagolnitzer, and several individual donors through a crowdfunding campaign held from November 14 to December 31, 2018.
Two Exhibitions Celebrating the Centenary of Gaston Darboux’s Death (October 2018 – July 2019)
Depth of Surfaces
To pay tribute to the great geometer Gaston Darboux, IHP dedicated two exhibitions to him. The first is historical: Gaston Darboux, 1842–1917: Under the Depth of Surfaces was presented at IHP library from October 24 to December 21, 2018. The exhibition is still available for rental: for more information.
Beneath the Surface, Math
The second exhibition, interactive, is titled Beneath the Surface, Math. It highlights connections between geometry and graphic arts over the past century. Visitors had the opportunity to see it at Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris from October 2, 2018, to July 7, 2019. The exhibition was then presented at Maison des Mathématiques et de l’Informatique in Lyon from September 20, 2019, to July 7, 2020.
On the side, a glimpse of the exhibition at Musée des Arts et Métiers.Deux expositions pour la célébration du centenaire de la disparition de Gaston Darboux (Octobre 2018 à juillet 2019)
Enquête chez Poincaré (octobre 2017)
L'Enquête chez Poincaré is an interactive trail available on the Piste et Trésor app. This treasure hunt, combining mathematics and heritage, allows participants to explore Paris’s 5th arrondissement in the style of Sherlock Holmes.
Esthétopies (March – July 2017)
Esthétopies, Varieties of Sensitive Spaces, an exhibition by Pierre Berger, was presented at IHP library from March 8 to July 8, 2017. Through an immersive trail and a series of sound and visual installations, Esthétopies offered visitors a unique experience exploring contemporary mathematical research.
La Maison des mathématiques 2021, chapitre 1 & 2 (2017)
The films La Maison des mathématiques 2020, chapitre 1 & La Maison des mathématiques 2020, chapitre 2 present the history of the building where scientists like Jean Perrin worked. Through the architectural project by Atelier Novembre, the building underwent a true transformation to host Maison Poincaré. These films were produced by IHP audiovisual department.
Celebration of Claude Shannon (December 2016 – March 2017)
One hundred years after the birth of Claude Shannon (1916–2001), the exhibition Le Magicien des Codes paid tribute to the discoveries of the telecommunications and cryptography pioneer. Through games and interactive presentations, the exhibition allowed the public to explore how information is processed, encoded, and decoded. Hosted at Musée des Arts et Métiers, which provided historical objects from its collections, the exhibition ran from December 13, 2016, to March 12, 2017.
The celebrations also included conferences covering technical and historical topics related to Shannon’s work and information theory. The Shannon Trophy involved students, teachers, and members of associations who developed projects around information theory. Awards for the best projects were presented by Cédric Villani in December 2016.
Conference "Mathematics: Oxygen of the Digital World" (November 2016)
Mathematics is key to technological innovation, flows through all sectors of the economy, lies at the heart of revolutions such as artificial intelligence, and plays a role in understanding major contemporary challenges, including sustainable development, climate, and health. Mathematicians are increasingly sought after in diverse fields, with careers spanning academia and the private sector.
How do mathematics push boundaries? How do they shape the world of tomorrow? What domains remain to be explored, what practices and new scientific organization emerge? What ethical and societal issues arise?
IHP, FSMP, and AMIES organized a conference on October 20–21, 2016, to debate these questions and explore emerging mathematics.