Benjamin Walker -- North West Seminar Series in Mathematical Biology and Data Sciences [ONLINE]
| Dates: | 8 February 2023 |
|---|
| Times: | 13:00 - 14:00 |
|---|
| What is it: | Seminar |
|---|
| Organiser: | Department of Mathematics |
|---|
| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
|---|
| Speaker: | Benjamin Walker |
|---|
|
Join us for this seminar by Benjamin Walker (UCL) as part of the North West Seminar Series in Mathematical Biology and Data Sciences. Details of the full series can be found here https://www.cms.livjm.ac.uk/APMSeminar/
The talk will be hosted by the University of Liverpool and streamed via zoom or teams, please contact carl.whitfield@manchester.ac.uk or bnvasiev@liverpool.ac.uk for the link, or sign up to the mailing list.
Abstract: Swimming on the microscale has long been the subject of intense research efforts, from experimental studies of bacteria, sperm, and algae through to varied theoretical questions of low-Reynolds-number fluid mechanics. The biological and biophysical settings that drive this ongoing research are often confoundingly complex, a fact that has driven the development and use of simple models of microswimmers. In this talk, we'll motivate and explore some of these models, building up our intuition for Stokesian fluid dynamics and the behaviours of microscale swimmers. Using these models, we will showcase how we can often exploit separated scales present in these problems to reveal surprisingly simple emergent dynamics, ranging from coarse-grained flow profiles to predictions of globally attracting, long-term behaviours. In doing so, we'll also uncover a surprising cautionary tale, the root of which is captured by a single, elementary statement that nevertheless calls into question much of the intuition gained from commonplace models of microswimming. In particular, we'll see that a wave-of-the-hands, which I have been guilty of before, can drastically and qualitatively change the dynamics that simple models predict, and we'll see how such missteps can be addressed through systematic multiscale methods.
To subscribe to the mailing list for this event series, please send an e-mail with the phrase “subscribe math-lifesci-seminar” in the message body to listserv@listserv.manchester.ac.uk
Speaker
Benjamin Walker
Role: Research Fellow
Organisation: University College London
Travel and Contact Information
