The Power of Analogy in Physics: From Faraday Waves to Quasicrystals
- Date: Monday 17 February 2020, 15:00 – 16:00
- Location: Mathematics Level 8, MALL 1 & 2, School of Mathematics
- Type: Applied mathematics, Seminars, Applied Mathematics
- Cost: Free
Professor Ron Lifshitz, Tel Aviv University
Quasicrystals have been observed recently in soft condensed mater, providing new insight into the ongoing quest to understand their formation and thermodynamic stability. I shall explain the stability of certain soft-matter quasicrystals, using surprisingly simple classical field theories, by making an analogy to Faraday waves. This will provide a recipe for designing pair potentials that yield crystals with (almost) any given symmetry.