The SoftMatterTheory group of Department of Physics and Astronomy of Tufts University, led by Timothy J. Atherton accompanied by Mathew Giso and Zhaoyu Xie, went to Somerville High School to help judge the projects of the annual Science and Engineering Fair on a lovely morning of March 1, 2018. We spent a wonderful time talking […]
Fenway High School has a longstanding partnership with the Museum of Science. Students regularly spend portions of the school day there throughout the year, and every December the museum hosts the school’s science fair. This year had ~70 participants covering a wide range of topics, and I spent my Friday morning helping to judge the event.
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An important lesson for a burgeoning graduate student is treat it like a job. That means getting there at nine and leaving at five during the work week. So when a conference falls on possibly the last nice Saturday of the year, you may find yourself conflicted. It can be difficult to pay attention, despite […]
We’re delighted to announce the publication of a new paper in collaboration with Applied Mathematicians at Tufts, Oxford and Memorial University of Newfoundland. This paper considers the intriguing problem of cholesteric liquid crystals (that naturally form helical structures) in cylinders of elliptical cross section. The results illustrate a mathematical technique, referred to as deflation, that […]
The ongoing collaboration between our SoftMatterTheory team and the Spicer group at the University of New South Wales unveiled its most recent work last week in a publication in Soft Matter. The paper, authored by Prerna Dahiya of the Spicer group, adds to her existing work characterizing the coalescence of oil droplets. Specifically, she found […]
Over the summer of 2014, Soft matter theory PI Tim Atherton and grad student Chris Burke designed a brand new course on Computational Physics, i.e how to use computers to solve physics problems. Unlike traditional classes, this adopted a radical new strategy: teaching computing through a sequence of carefully designed group projects. To ensure the […]
Back in August of 2016, Tim, Chris, Andrew DB, and Andrew M spent two weeks in residency at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The trip, made possible by a Tufts University travel grant, allowed the SoftMatterTheory team to work in person with longtime collaborator Patrick Spicer and fellow chemical engineer Stuart Prescott. […]
Tufts University announced today that Soft Matter Theory PI Tim Atherton was one of four faculty members who earned 2017 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Atherton received a five-year $484,584 award to investigate how jamming – a transition to rigidity that occurs in soft materials – is altered when it occurs […]
Every year, students in my Physics 12 General Physics II class make video projects about electromagnetism. Here are this years amazing videos:—
Jordan, Alex, Matthew, James “Shocking how good this project is”
Patrick, Dylan, Rory — Magnetic braking
Clara, Tanya, Stasia — Tesla coil
Emily, Emily, Jingyi, Ken — Electroreception in […]
I‘m delighted to announce that our new paper, “Predicting the influence of plate geometry on the eddy-current pendulum” has just been published in the American Journal of Physics. This journal publishes material related to physics education and our paper concerns a familiar classroom demonstration called Van Waltenhofen’s pendulum (or the Eddy Current pendulum) […]
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Email us at timothy.atherton@tufts.edu