WEDNESDAY, February 7, 2007
Time: 7:30 PM
OCNPS 200

Title: Nano-Materials: What's Really Different and What's Math Got To Do With It?

M. Gregory Forest
Departments of Mathematics & Biomedical Engineering
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

By now everyone has heard about "nano", if by no other means than from the IPod nano. In this lecture I will address some of the reasons why the design of materials at the nanometer scale really is different from traditional materials. I will have very little to say about your IPod, I confess. I will survey some of the promise that nano-materials hold for applications in technology and medicine. Yet, there are challenges that come with great promise, and I will provide some perspectives on why Nature presents unique obstacles in nano-science and nano-technology. Finally, I will respond to a slight variation on Tina Turner's rhetorical question: what's math got to do with it?