BEGIN:VCALENDAR BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:AME Department Seminar DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Jun Zhang, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University Talk Title: Ratchets in Fluid Transportation and in Biological Locomotion Abstract: I discuss several cases where a broken symmetry—either broken spontaneously or by construction—leads to ratcheting behavior in systems where dynamic boundaries interact with moving fluids. Two examples feature reciprocal forcing combined with geometric anisotropy of boundaries. In one case a solid body can be made to hover stably, and in another, a fluid is efficiently pumped. I will also discuss the dynamics of a symmetric wing whose forward flight follows from a symmetry breaking instability, and how this dynamics is affected by the introduction of more biological realism. Host: Dr. E. Kanso More Info: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/index.shtml#upcoming DTSTART:20101201T153000 LOCATION:SLH 100 URL;VALUE=URI:http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/index.shtml#upcoming DTEND:20101201T163000 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR