Ruth ChabayWed March 27, 12:30p
Simtable/Redfish Office 1600 Lena Street Suite D1
Abstract: "The term “soft condensed matter” was invented to describe a variety of interesting forms of matter that do not fall into any of the standard classifications (solid, liquid, gas). These include liquid crystals, polymers, biological membranes, aerogels, colloids, and non-Newtonian fluids such as cornstarch-water mixtures. In all of these materials, mesoscale structures spontaneously assemble at ordinary temperatures. This spontaneous structure formation can be understood with basic statistical thermodynamic arguments. A group of scientists and educators at the Weizmann Institute in Israel has been developing an introductory-level course (for advanced high-school students) on soft matter. In November I joined the group and have focused on introducing computational modeling, both in order to provide a strong conceptual foundation for important thermodynamic concepts, and to provide tools that will allow students to do serious computational projects in the last year of the course. This is work in progress—I’ll show some of the computational tools we’re working on, and will talk about the pedagogical context.
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