Physics Colloquium - Fall 2005 - "Physics at the Breakfast Table"
Sidney Nagel
Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor
Dept. of Physics
University of Chicago, Illinois
will give a free public presentation at the University of Maine
"Physics at the Breakfast Table"
Many complex phenomena are so familiar that we forget to ask whether or not they are understood. In this lecture, I will discuss several familiar cases of effects that are so ubiquitous that we hardly realize that they defy our normal intuition about why they happen. The examples of poorly understood classical physics that I will choose can all be viewed at a breakfast table: the anomalous flow of granular material, the long messy tendrils left by honey spooned from one dish to another and the pesky rings deposited by spilled coffee on a table after the liquid evaporates. These are all non-linear hydrodynamic phenomena which not only are of technological importance but can also lead the inquisitive into new realms of physics.
Thursday, September 29
Room 137, Bennett Hall at 7 p.m.
The presentation is sponsored by the UMaine Dept. of Physics and Astronomy as part of a series of public events in celebration of the Albert Einstein centennial year and the World Year of Physics.
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