Cosmologist
Reflections on Agentic AI and Research: opportunities and risk , a SISSA workshop Cover image by Marcin Wilkowski — https://betterimagesofai.org On Friday 15th May 2026, I attended the workshop Agentic AI and Research: opportunities and risk, organised by the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) in Trieste. I had been kindly invited by Roberto Trotta [ ]
On the use of ChatGPT in academia: a measured response Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote what might charitably be called a think-piece on the use of ChatGPT in academia, or more specifically, my observations on the use of ChatGPT by a handful of my colleagues in the small niche of French cosmology which [ ]
On Tuesday myself and two friends went to a concert. We left work at six o clock and drove south to the coast, following a small road hemmed in on one side by the sea and on the other by the Étang du Prévost. Our destination was the Cathédrale de Maguelone, an ancient church occasionally referred [ ]
Creation is a sacred act. From the profundity of making a new life to the mundanity of whistling a tune through one s teeth whilst doing the washing up, human life is filled from end to end with acts of creation. So smitten with creativity are we that we would love to see our own creations [ ]
For the past year, I have been stuck in a research slump. One year ago, I started applying for jobs; and with fellowship applications in the mix too, the whole period from October to December disappeared into the mire of proposals, cover letters and research statements. When I emerged after Christmas, it was into the [ ]
I have lived in Paris for eighteen months. Or, rather, I have lived in Paris proper for six months. For the year before that, I lived in Orsay, a small town in a far southern extremity of the city. Close enough to be in Zone 5 on the RER, but distant enough that it was [ ]
In August I spent two weeks in the USA; one week in Chicago, attending a conference at KICP, and the second week on holiday, taking the sleeper train from Chicago to Seattle and spending five days on the west coast. It was a big and exciting trip, and I was determined to capture it as [ ]
A guided tour of the Universe from Einstein to JWST It was a great pleasure to be invited to the Charlbury Beer Festival in June 2023 to give a talk in the culture tent. The topic I chose to discuss was gravity, and more specifically how our best theory of gravity, Einstein s theory of general [ ]
Or, everyone in the world is French M. Luc Arnaud farmed a small plot somewhere in the south of France. Exactly when and exactly where M. Arnaud s farm was is now no longer remembered, but we can be sure that he had a few cows, a few pigs, a few chickens and one rather moth-eaten [ ]
Today I released a paper written in collaboration with Pierre Fleury, Julien Larena and Matteo Martinelli on how we can measure line-of-sight shear from Einstein rings. But what is line-of-sight shear, and why are we interested in measuring it in the first place? To answer these questions, let s review the phenomenon of strong gravitational lensing. [ ]