Celebrating Sydney Leach : from Molecular Photophysics to Astrobiology with Musical Interludes

As many of you know, Sydney Leach died on December 24th 2019, at the age of 95. He was active to the very end. Sydney was a pillar of modern chemical physics and, through his many and lasting contributions, has been a major influence in placing ‘photophysique moléculaire’ squarely on the map of post-war science. Many of us, hearing of the sad news of his death, immediately felt that a meeting to commemorate Sydney’s life-long contribution would be very appropriate. Such a meeting is planned for September 22nd-25th of this year, to take place at Orsay at the Institut des Sciences Moléculaires d’Orsay.