Events Calendar

AME Seminar

Speaker: James Hanna, UN Reno

Talk Title: Exterior algebra and the proportional selective modification of dynamical systems, from rotors to nonlinear lattices

Abstract: This is the story of a seemingly trivial problem, born of quarantine, that surprised me by turning into something more interesting. I will introduce a new technique for adding dissipation or otherwise modifying dynamical systems to selectively change any number of conserved quantities, while only reducing the total number of conserved quantities by one. I will first present a naive approach to a simple example, a textbook problem of a specially damped rotor often used to explain the failure of the Explorer 1 satellite. Then (in joint work with M. Aureli), we generalize the approach to any number of dimensions and conserved quantities. The resulting dynamics drives the modified system to a nontrivial state of the original system.

Biography: Hanna is Associate Professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, which he joined in 2019 as a refugee fleeing the great purge of unapologetic mechanicians from Virginia Tech. A lapsed materials scientist, he spent several years impersonating a postdoctoral physicist at UMass Amherst, and currently performs mechanics without a license. He is interested in applications of geometry to theoretical and experimental classical mechanics, and is currently thinking about shell buckling, cable snapping, pseudomomentum and material symmetry, new formulations of elasticity, and a few other things.

Host: AME Department

More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/93987337017?pwd=MWd2dXBSL1FaR1RPaHNscjJ1NW80UT09

Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/93987337017?pwd=MWd2dXBSL1FaR1RPaHNscjJ1NW80UT09

Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252

WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/93987337017?pwd=MWd2dXBSL1FaR1RPaHNscjJ1NW80UT09

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Tessa Yao

Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/93987337017?pwd=MWd2dXBSL1FaR1RPaHNscjJ1NW80UT09