🚀 go-pugleaf

Lecture notice

01-07-97 7:30pm NE43-773 (545 Tech Sq.)

        "Friction on the Nanoscale"

        Professor Jacqueline Krim
          Department of Physics
         Northeastern University

      
Despite a long research history friction has proved frustratingly
difficult to understand theoretically.  According to the cover
story of the October _Scientific American_, which was written by
our speaker, friction cannot be predicted even in the best case
-- assuming perfect surface characterization. (At one point in
her research Professor Krim discovered that attempting to
lubricate a surface can actually increase friction by as much as
5x.  She writes: "This effect was so counterintuitive to me that
I held off publishing the result for more than a year after
discovering it.")

Trends in material science and fabrication are steadily raising
the cost of this ignorance and a considerable effort is being
made to understand the physics of friction on an atomic scale.
Tools in "nanotribology" include large-scale computer modelling
of materials interactions on an atom-by-atom basis and the
development of instruments that can sense forces on the
piconewton level.  Professor Krim is a leader in this research
and will give an overview of the landscape, its challenges and
prospects.

hapgood@pobox.com