Abstract: Life on Earth constitutes the most sophisticated iterations in the known universe of what physicists classify as soft matter. This field was until very recently restricted to analytical consideration of simpler systems like isotropically interacting colloids and cross-linked polymers such as rubber. Recent advances in theory and computation now allow us to begin considering life itself in analytical, mechanistic detail. In this new view of life as soft matter, evolution, with its own formal rules and algorithms, governs the appearance and diversification of new forms of Earth’s soft matter. My work is driven by insights into evolutionary mechanisms that in turn generate insights into physical mechanisms that are inaccessible from more top-down analytical approaches. This talk will highlight examples of this approach in the appearance of gradient-index optics in squid via patchy colloidal self-assembly, and the most efficient photosynthetic system on Earth, Palauan giant clams.
Host: Paul Tipton
Tea after the talk outside the lecture hall