The 2013 Bragg Lecture will take place on Wed 30 October, and will be given by Prof Paul Chaikin (New York University) on Some small steps towards artificial life.
Abstract: The properties we often associate with living things are motility,
metabolism, self-replication and evolution. According to the Nobel
Laureate Richard Feynman: “What I can’t create, I don’t understand”. We
thought we’d give it a shot - understanding life - and in the process
we’ve made two different systems, one that exhibits both autonomous
motility and metabolism and another which is the first artificial system
that can replicate arbitrarily designed motifs. The first system,
artificial swimmers, provides insight into many natural phenomena such
as a flocking of birds and schooling of fish. The second system uses
diurnal cycles of temperature and light and at present is doubling each
cycle, growing exponentially. It provides a new way of producing many,
many copies of nanoscale devices and may give insights into the origin
of conventional life on earth. We even have initiated an elementary
form of evolution.
Showing posts with label Bragg lecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bragg lecture. Show all posts
Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Nobel Laureate at UCL
2010 Physics Nobel Laureate Prof Andre Geim is giving the annual Bragg Lecture at UCL on Wednesday 27 October. The Bragg Lecture is the premier lecture in condensed-matter and materials physics at UCL. It is given annually by a distinguished scientist working in the field.
Graphene: Magic of Flat Carbon
Graphene - single atomic plane pulled out of graphite - is a wonder material. It has many superlatives to its name. It is the thinnest material one can imagine and the strongest one ever measured. Its charge carriers have zero effective mass and can travel micron distances without scattering under ambient conditions. Graphene can sustain current densities million times higher than copper, shows record thermal conductivity and stiffness, is impermeable to gases or liquids. It reconciles such conflicting qualities as brittleness and ductility. Electrons in graphene behave in such a way that this allows the investigation of relativistic quantum phenomena in a bench-top experiment. I will overview fascinating properties of graphene and outline some applications.
Location: Christopher Ingold Chemistry Auditorium, UCL
Time: 4.30pm, Wed 27 Oct
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