this man should talk to you!
From Gladden et al, Phys Rev Lett 94 35503 (2005)
Recently we had a very refreshing Astronomy department colloquium.
It was be Prof Andrew Belmonte, experimental mathematician and pasta chef extraordinaire.
He also gives good talks.
The topic was a bit off the beaten path for us; non-Newtonian fluids, viscoelastic polymers and buckling and shattering of fibers. In other words it was intellectually stimulating, refreshing and interesting. (Like all our colloquium speakers of course, just different).
And, it was also relevant, apart from the obvious astrobio relevance, there are are clear analogies to magnetohydrodynamic fluids and crustal snapping in neutron stars.
So, invite him to give a talk at your institution.
posted by Steinn at 1:41 PM
2 Comments:
From the links it looks like an interesting line of work. Did he shatter any pasta during the talk? Mmm...shrapnelicious.
But I'm afraid I'm not smart enough to see the relevance to astrobiology, obvious or not :-) Does it have something to do with limiting the length of self-replicating molecular chains?
Probably not.
Sipior
Sticky fluids and their behaviour has possible interesting astrobio implications. Particularly when considering the mechanical properties of elastic polymers in solution.
We still had the broken pasta bits on the floor and lectern when our external review came in a week later. Good conversation point: "that, oh yes, we had an experimental mathematician give a colloquium last week and he did some pasta experiments"...
Some people just get to have more fun than the rest of us.
Post a Comment
<< Home