David Schaeffer - Physical Applied Mathematics Seminar
| Dates: | 20 June 2022 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 15:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Department of Mathematics |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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David Schaeffer (Duke University) joins us for this in-person seminar in the Physical Applied Mathematics Series
Abstract: In this talk I will relate the history of my involvement with granular flow. The story is rooted in mathematics, and to explain it I need to introduce a number of key topics in this field, including some problems for current research.
On the personal side: I learned of this exciting, then largely unexplored, field in the mid-eighties and quickly made this the focus of my research. Fairly early on I discovered that the simplest dynamic equations for such flow were ill-posed and therefore untenable. I spent many frustrating years trying to define ever more restrictive conditions under which the equations would be well-posed. Ultimately I gave up and left the field in disgust even as the field was becoming fashionable. I closed out my career trying to retrain myself, with at best modest success, as a mathematical biologist, and I expected when I retired in 2012 that my involvement with mathematics was over. However, during a visit to Manchester in 2014, Nico Gray introduced me to some stimulating new ideas in granular flow, especially ?(I)-rheology, that had appeared while I was ignoring the literature. In collaboration with him and members of his group, we found that my previous analysis of ill-posedness could be invoked to enhance the understanding of ?(I)-rheology, and we went on to modify this theory to obtain well-posed equations?—my unachieved goal from years earlier. Continuing this work, I am happily spending my dotage exploring further ramifications of these ideas with younger collaborators.
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Frank Adams 1
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