Foams & Complex Systems Group
Our research concerns the physics of foams, general packing problems, and topics in econo- and sociophysics.
News
New Scientist Magazine: Bubbling over
The collaboration between Stefan Hutzler and art-photographer Kym Cox, Poole, resulted in three of her photographs of foams being shortlisted by the Royal Photographic Society for its Science Photographer of the Year competition. The images, which display the colourful structures of ordered liquid foams, a research specialty of the TCD foams group, will form part of an exhibition at the Science Museum London (October 7 to January 5, 2020). One of the photos also features on a double page in the August 24 edition of the New Scientist magazine.
New York Times: The Bubble-Verse
The Foams and Complex Systems group featured in the New York Times edition of April 9, 2019. The article 'The Bubble-Verse' contains an interview with Denis Weaire about the Weaire-Phelan structure and the recent discovery of scutoids in foams.
Award for Kym Cox
Kym Cox was awarded a Fellowship of the British Institute of Professional Photographers (BIPP). Her work and interaction with our group is featured in the 2018-19 Issue Four of BIPP's Magazine The Photographer.
4th International Conference on Packing Problems
Researchers from around the world will gather at Yale this summer for the 4th International Conference on Packing Problems. The first conference in this field took place at Trinity College Dublin in 2012.
Physics World: Scutoid cells discovered in soap bubbles
Our work on scutoids in soap bubbles featured in an article in Physics World.
Soap and scutoids
A century and half ago the blind Belgian scientist Joseph Plateau laid down the basic rules that give the geometry and topology of foams, as dictated by surface tension. Researchers still delight in working out their consequences: it is often a complicated game but it is played according to simple laws, for example that no more than three soap films may meet in a line. Anyone who looks at the forms of biological cells is struck by the fact that the same rules seem to apply. So when a new type of epithelial (skin) cell arrived on the scene recently, causing quite a splash in the media, physicists in Dublin and Aberystwyth immediately asked: is this shape to be found in a foam under similar circumstances?
Zero Waste Performance
Zero Waste is a duo for pianist Kathleen Supové and computer, which challenges the live performer to both create and sight-read a new piece on the spot. The computer displays two measures of software-generated music in common music notation. Once Kathleen begins playing, the software begins to transcribe her performance into the score. The performer in turn, "sight reads" this score. A video of the performance can be found under the link.
Analysis of Zero Waste Performance
An analysis of Zero Waste, a duo for sight-reading pianist and computer, was published in Music Theory Spectrum.. See also Whyte D, Didkovsky N, Hutzler S (2018), Zero Waste: Mapping the Evolution of the Iterative Sight-Reading of a Piano Score, Music Theory Spectrum 40 302-313.
Ten most recent publications
- Winkelmann J, Mughal A Williams DB, Weaire D, Hutzler S (2019), Theory of rotational columnar structures of soft spheres, Rapid Comm Phys Rev E 99 020602(R)
- Burke SR, Möbius ME, Hjelt T, Hutzler S (2019), Properties of lightweight fibrous structures made by a novel foam forming technique, Cellulose 4 2529-2539
- Richmond P, Roehner BM, Wang Q-h (2019), The physics of large-scale food crises, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 522 274-293
- Höhler R, Weaire D (2019), Can liquid foams and emulsions be modeled as packings of soft elastic particles?, Adv. Colloid Interface Sci. 263 19-37
- Whyte D, Didkovsky N, Hutzler S (2018), Zero Waste: Mapping the Evolution of the Iterative Sight-Reading of a Piano Score, Music Theory Spectrum 40 302-313
- Mughal A, Winkelmann J, Weaire D, Hutzler S (2018), Columnar structures of soft spheres: Metastability and hysteresis, Phys Rev E 98 043303
- Drenckhan W, Hutzler S (2018), Chapter 16: The Structure of Liquid Foams in Foam Film and Foams: Fundamentals and Applications, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group 295--308
- Cox S, Kraynik AM, Weaire D, Hutzler S (2018), Ideal wet two-dimensional foams and emulsions with finite contact angle, Soft Matter 14 5922--5929
- Boland CS, Khan U, Binions M, Barwich S, Boland JB, Weaire D, Coleman JN (2018), Graphene-coated polymer foams as tuneable impact sensors, Nanoscale 10 5366
- Li R, Richmond P, Roehner BM (2018), Effect of population density on epidemics, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 510 713-724
Selection of Books
Tomás Saraceno: Cloud — Specific by Meredith Malone.
This book includes an interview with Denis Weaire and many images of foam structures taken by the group
View on Amazon