Dr. Sid Nagel Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor Department of Physics
James Franck Institute The University of Chicago
SID NAGEL received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1969 and his Ph.D in Physics from Princeton
University in 1974. He was a Research Associate at Brown University before moving in 1976 to the University of Chicago,
where he is currently is Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Physics and a member of the
James Franck Institute.
Professor Nagel works to make sense out of disordered, non-linear and out-of-equilibrium systems. Initially his research
focused on the transition that occurs when a liquid is supercooled into an amorphous solid. His interests subsequently
broadened to include granular materials such as sand and coffee grounds. Along a somewhat related line of research, he has
been studying the singularities that occur in hydrodynamic flows. A drop falling from a faucet is a common example of
singularity formation, as the liquid breaks up into two or more pieces.
Professor Nagel is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the National Academy of Sciences. He is also an
accomplished photographer who sometimes uses his talents for documenting his experimental research.
General Public Lecture
“Physics at the Breakfast Table”
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 7:30pm in PSF 173
Abstract: Many complex phenomena are so familiar that we forget to ask whether or not they are understood.
In this lecture, I will discuss several familiar cases of effects that are so ubiquitous that we hardly realize that they
defy our normal intuition about why they occur. The examples of poorly understood classical physics that I will choose can
all be viewed at a breakfast table: the anomalous flow of granular material, the long messy tendrils left by honey spooned
from one dish to another and the pesky rings deposited by spilled coffee on a table after the liquid evaporates. These are
all phenomena which not only are of technological importance but can also lead the inquisitive into new realms of physics.
In each case one can discover images of uncommon beauty.
Department of Physics Colloquium
“Jamming and the Low Temperature Properties of Glasses”
Thursday, October 26, 2006 4:00pm in PSF 123
Abstract: Both glasses and granular materials are amorphous systems of particles in which the dynamics is
perched precariously near a transition between a flowing and a static state. Is there something generic about such
transitions so that the freezing of a liquid into a glass can profitably be compared to the arrest of a flowing granular
material or a colloidal suspension as external stresses are reduced below the yield stress? In the present talk, I will
consider the jamming transition at zero temperature. There are many unique properties of this transition as it is approached
from higher density. In particular, there is a dramatic contribution to an excess density of vibrational states at low
frequencies which is reminiscent of the Boson peak seen in glasses. An analysis of the origin of these modes suggests a new
approach to jammed materials and to the low-temperature excitations of glasses an approach based not on disorder but rather
on the weak connectivity of the structure.
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