Nov. 3 (Thursday) L. Mahadevan (Harvard)

Of fluttering flags, fishes, flying carpets and flytraps

Abstract:

The borderlands between elasticity and hydrodynamics lead naturally to a number of moving boundary problems that form the basis for many problems in animal and plant movement. I will discuss some phenomena in this rich area involving extreme geometries: the flutter of a slender flag in a breeze, and its relation to fish swimming, the physics of flying carpets, and the dynamics of fluid-filled tissues and their relation to rapid movements in some plants.

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