November 19, 2003
Classification of Rotational Figures of Equilibrium
That is the title of a very good looking poster presented by
Ryan Hynd last weekend.
The poster presentation was at the Sigma Xi conference in Los Angeles,and Ryan's presentation was judged to be in the top 10% of those at the conference.
The famous French philisophe Plateau observed in the 1700s a particular
property of rotating oil drops. The physical experiment requires one to
rotate oil dorps in a boyant solution. The possible shapes that one can get out
include tori. Namely the topology can change.
Beginning in the Summer of 2002, three undergraduates, Ryan Hynd, Jefferey Elms, and Roberto Lopez begain a project to duplicate these experiments. 
Lead by Professors Pelesko and McCuan, they also sought a characterization of all possible shapes that can be obtained by this experiment.
They have obtained characterizations of the profiles to these drops in terms of solutions to certain ordinary differential equaitons. The poster above is big file, with a large number of cool graphics on it.
Posted by lacey at November 19, 2003 10:03 PM