Geomtrix

Our work on scutoids was picked up by Physics World. You can read the article here: https://physicsworld.com/a/scutoid-cells-discovered-in-soap-bubbles/

Ken Stephenson (University of Knoxville TN) came to visit me for a week in Aberystwyth. Apart from the mountain biking:

We also spent some time discussing circle packings and their applications to problems in physics:

This summer I visited the programme entitled “The Packing of Continua” at Aspen, details below. Probabily one of the best meetings I have ever been to… plenty of time for discussions and not too heavy on talks - perfect!

June 11 - July 2 The Packing of Continua

Organizers:Gregory Grason - University of Massachusetts, Eleni Katifori, University of Pennsylvania, L. Mahadevan - Harvard University, Jennifer Schwarz - Syracuse University 

Packing problems have been at the core physical descriptions of matter dating back to at least the time of Kepler. This workshop will bring together researchers from diverse fields working to understand packing of filaments and sheets in three-dimensional space. In comparison to problems of packing compact and rigid elements, the consequences of the more subtle interplay between shape and separation of continuously deformable, extended objects on their space-filling arrangements and collective behaviors at high density are far less understood. And this, despite the diverse applications of filament and sheet packing problems to current challenges in biology and materials science, from the fractal packing of condensed chromosomes to the design of 2D metamaterials. The scope of the workshop will cover recent advances in characterizing, understanding and optimizing multi-filament/sheet assemblies, as well as frontier questions stemming from new observations and emerging challenges in biological and synthetic matter.

Here are some obligatory conference pictures:

Phyllotaxis, disk packing and Fibonacci numbers

A Mughal and D Weaire

We consider the evolution of the packing of disks (representing the position of buds) that are introduced at the top of a surface which has the form of a growing stem. They migrate downwards, while conforming to three principles, applied locally: dense packing, homogeneity and continuity. We show that spiral structures characterised by the widely observed Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13...), as well as related structures, occur naturally under such rules. Typical results are presented in a animation.

See http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.05824 for full details

Jointly with Martin Swain in IBERS we have a new PhD student working with us on problems relating to active matter and bacterial swarms