Île aux Cygnes (French pronunciation: [il o siɲ]; English: Isle of the Swans) is a small island in the Seine in Paris, France, located in the 15th and 16th arrondissement. It is an artificially-created island, formed in 1827 to protect the port of Grenelle. It should not be confused with an earlier Île des Cygnes which was attached to the Champ de Mars in the late 18th century.

The narrow island is 850 metres (2,789 ft) long and 11 metres (36 ft) at its widest point. A tree-lined walkway, named "l'Allée des Cygnes", runs the length of the island.

The island is served by the Passy and Bir-Hakeim Métro stations. It is crossed by three bridges: the Pont de Grenelle, the Pont Rouelle and the Pont de Bir-Hakeim.

A notable feature is a one-fourth scale replica of the Statue of Liberty, 22 metres high and facing west in the direction of its larger sibling in New York City. This monument, which was inaugurated by French President Marie François Sadi Carnot on 4 July 1889 (nearly three years after its counterpart), was given to the city of Paris by the American community of Paris, commemorating the centennial of the French Revolution. The statue initially faced east, toward the Eiffel Tower, but it was turned west in 1937 for the exposition universelle hosted by Paris that year. Its base carries a commemorative plaque, and the tablet in its left hand bears the inscription IV Juillet 1776 = XIV Juillet 1789, recognizing the American Independence Day and Bastille Day, respectively. An even smaller statue is located in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and a third copy can be seen in the Musée des Arts et Métiers.

Michel Graillier was a French jazz pianist, born 18 October 1946 in Lens (Pas-de-Calais), died 11 February 2003 in Paris.

From four to eighteen years of age, Michel Graillier studied classical piano in Lens. During adolescence, he appeared on the scene for the first time as a drummer with the amateur yéyé group, ‘’Les Chaps’’ (“The Guys”).

After some preparatory classes, he enrolled at the ISEN in Lille,in their engineering school where he met the bassist Didier Levallet through whom he discovered jazz. In 1968, with a diploma in electrical engineering under his belt, he moved to Paris. There he played in clubs, most notably at the “Caméléon”, in a trio with Aldo Romano and Jean-François Jenny-Clark. He made his first recording in 1969 with Steve Lacy. Thereafter, he accompanied the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty for three years. His first disc with the label, Agartha Records, appeared in 1970 on which he was accompanied by Alby Cullaz and Bernard Lubat. The same he year he recorded "Pianos Puzzle" with Georges Arvanitas, René Urtreger and Maurice Vander. After some “personal problems", he withdrew from performing for a period of time.

Hervé This (pronounced: [tis]; born 1955 in Suresnes, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French physical chemist who works for the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique at AgroParisTech, in Paris (France). His main area of scientific research is molecular gastronomy, that is the science of culinary phenomena (more precisely, looking for the mechanisms of phenomena occurring during culinary transformations).

With the late Nicholas Kurti, he coined the scientific term "Molecular and Physical Gastronomy" in 1988, which he shortened to "Molecular Gastronomy" after Kurti's death in 1998. Graduated from École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris, he obtained a Ph.D from the University Paris VI, under the title "La gastronomie moléculaire et physique". He has written many scientific publications, as well as several books on the subject which can be understood even by those who have little or no knowledge of chemistry, but so far only four have been translated into English. He also collaborates with the magazine Pour la Science, the aim of which is to present scientific concepts to the general public. He is also a corresponding member of the Académie d'agriculture de France, and, more recently, the scientific director of the foundation "Food Science & Culture", which he created at the French Academy of Science. In 2011, he was elected as a Consulting Professor of AgroParisTech, and he was also asked to create courses on science and technology at Sciences Po Paris.