Zhigang Suo
@zhigangsuo
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I'll be teaching thermodynamics this fall. Students are mostly junior-year concentrators in engineering and applied sciences. I will be grateful to hear about your ideas. Here are my class notes.
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My wife, Denian, died at home, on Sunday, 30 July 2023.
She was diagnosed with glioblastoma in March 2018.
The last five years have been fulfilling. She saw births of two more grandchildren. She attended wedding of our second son. She pointed to me pretty spots on our walks.
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I read this gem years ago when I was infatuated with biology.
“Biologists and biochemists would enjoy their work more if they thought less in terms of thermodynamics and learned some of the rudiments of statistical physics.”
The statement applies to other scientists as well.
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I fell in love with mathematics in middle school. After coming to America for graduate study, I discovered translations of Russian texts by Silverman. Dover made them affordable. I didn’t have much money but had a lot of time.
I’ve spent many happy hours with this one.⤵️
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I’m deeply honored to be elected a foreign member of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Academy announced the election today, a day before Thanksgiving.
Thank you all—family, friends, coworkers.
30 foreign members elected this year⤵️
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A letter (draft) to the President
@MIT
from ~100 MIT faculty members.
It compares facts and Government's allegations against Professor Gang Chen.
Versions of it have been sent to many people, and it is in the public domain.
A powerful ending:
"We are all Gang Chen"
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All linear systems are alike, but every nonlinear system is nonlinear in its own way.
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Caltech has placed online the videos of the 1964 Feynman’s lectures at Cornell, along with transcripts.
Profoundly lucid. Watch them even if you have never been interested in physics.
He won Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.
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In October 1987, Denian was pregnant with Daniel. We were still new in Boston. I took this photo of her.
Today, Daniel and Michael drove me to Boston Common, and I took a photo of the two brothers.
We will look for the 1987 scene some other day. It must be along Charles River.
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I did well in math competitions in high school, but badly in the first math competition in college. Here was a problem that I couldn’t solve.
An 8 by 12 paper is folded such that a corner coincides with the midpoint of an edge. What is the length of the fold?
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I was in a subgroup meeting on zoom, and received a phone call from Gang Chen!
"I'm a free man now!" he said.
A page has just turned.
Unsure what's on the next page, but that will be for another day.
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Getting ready for the “Celebration of Life” this afternoon.
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Today the National Academy of Sciences has just announced the election of new members.
Congratulations to Professor Gang Chen for the election.
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Thank you for these tender words. On Saturday, 5 August 2023, our two sons and their wives hosted a celebration of life at our home.
In tears and smiles, the guests traded stories of Denian.
In celebrating one life, we celebrate all lives.
@zhigangsuo
I don’t know how to put this into words, your news brought tears in my eyes instantly, and every time I see your posts. You seem to smile (for the children) but your eyes do not smile (unlike in your profile picture). Take heart, she will still be with you in your dreams.
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In this week’s Science,
@Junsoo_twit
@GuogaoZhang
@MeixuanziS
and I report on how sparse crosslinks and dense entanglements in gels and elastomers affect fracture, fatigue, and friction.
We’d love to hear from you all on these topics.
@hseas
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Of domestic science, Denian was an accomplished experimentalist, and I was an aspiring theorist.
She was interesting and perceptive. I had opinions about things that I didn’t know. She and I talked about collaboration.
We ran out of time.
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In 1977, at the age of 15, Denian went to Lanzhou University, majored in English Literature. Thank her college classmate, Helen Liu, for these words.
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Denian obtained the Certificate in Accounting, but couldn’t find a job. She wrote several entries about the humiliating experience.
“I’m depressed and have lost all the confidence I had. It’s so damned hard! Sometimes I feel I couldn’t bear it any more.”
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Daniel
@danielsuo
and Michael
@suospeaks
drove me to Charles River Esplanade, on the Boston bank of the River, looking at the skyline of Cambridge.
The buildings are there. The willow tree is there.
The flower bed is gone. So is Denian.
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Denian and I were married in 1986. Mom made sure that we took wedding photos in a studio in Shanghai, not in Xian. The studio rented out clothes.
“You look more like your mom,” people would say when I grew up.
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In the first lecture of the graduate course on Fracture Mechanics, I focussed on toughness.
I'm turning my class notes into Google docs, so I can revise any time on any screen--laptop, pad, and phone.
You can also read any time on any screen.
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Mathematics came to me through endless competitions in middle school and high school, and as tools for studying engineering in college and graduate school.
Mathematics came into itself for me only years later, through this book.
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Denian and I found each other over 37 years ago. She reshaped her dreams and rediscovered herself.
She taught our sons and me to celebrate life itself, ups and downs.
The downs are poignant, but can be just as beautiful.
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What is a scientific paper?
Why do we write it?
How?
This 3-page handout, created by George Whitesides on 4 October 1989, offers practical answers.
Strongly recommended for researchers of all ages.
Whitesides' Group: Writing a Paper
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This delightful book, written by Maxwell, is eminently readable. He taught evening classes for artisans.
Among numerous entries are zeroth law, thermometry, calorimetry, Gibbs surface, and Maxwell demon.
An joyful book by a joyful man.
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In the 1990s, Herbert Hui invited me to give a seminar at Cornell.
“Let me introduce you to an interesting character,” Herbert said.
I met
@stevenstrogatz
.
“Here is a gift for you,” Steve said.
The book has given me many hours of pleasure of reading and illumination.
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For graduate students joining my group, I have been asking them to read Whitesides on writing a paper (). Now I am going to ask them to watch this video made by
@darren_lipomi
. Or better, read Whitesides and Watch Lipomi.
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Last Sunday evening, we toured for the first time the new building of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
We entered a lecture hall. The blackboards were black and spectacular.
I lectured to three students.☺️
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Before I came to America, in August 1986, Denian and I went from Xian to Shanghai, and had our wedding in Shanghai.
Then I flew to America, and she went back to Xian.
She joined me in Boston in July 1987.
It was so long ago. It was like yesterday.
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We are told that our paper will come out today in Nature.
So excited!
@jasongsteck
@Junsoo_twit
@ykutsovsky
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John Hutchinson and Xuanhe Zhao
@ProfZhaoMIT
came to our home on Sunday.
Xuanhe’s wife took this photo of three generations of the academic family.
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I’ll be teaching Fracture Mechanics this semester. Here is a lecture-by-lecture schedule, along with my notes.
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In honor of Denian, our son Daniel has set up a fundraiser to support Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Please kindly consider donating and retweeting.
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I left China, in 1986, to attend graduate study at Harvard. My parents were unable to support me, but Harvard took me in with a fellowship.
America taught me the truths of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
May these truths be forever self-evident.
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I ask each member in my group to set up a Twitter account using his or her real name. Here are my reasons.
(1) The aim of a researcher is to find things worth knowing to people.
(2) A tweet is a publication, with unique address and public access.
(3) Link people to your work.
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Criminal Justice 101 by
@Teri_Kanefield
.
Thank you for your patient teaching in this overwhelming time. Many of us read you for illumination, comfort, and grip for reality.
I want to reissue my warning to the people who keep clamoring for indictments.
Indictments will never do what you want them to do because the criminal justice system is not designed to solve political problems.
We can have a theoretical discussion of what it is supposed to do.
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Chinese-American chip designer loses bid to have trade-secret conviction tossed.
“I would be blind myself to say there was no implicit bias here,” said the judge
What is the judge trying to rationalize? Please read and retweet👇
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Denian started to keep diary on 2 April 1986.
“He said he loved me more than I loved him. How can he know my heart! My love is hidden in my heart. His love is in his mouth. I don’t mean to say that he’s lying. A boy is different from a girl.”
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Denian liked to drink tea. She made tea daily until two weeks before her death. I was indifferent to tea, but would take a sip from her cup. Sometimes she made a cup for me as well.
She left a lot of tea leaves to me.
Now I make tea daily, until the tea leaves are all gone.
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When I came to US for graduate study, in 1986, the Harvard International Office made Ed and Jane my host parents. “My father likes math,” their son told me. “Me too,” I said. Years later, I learned that Ed invented chaos theory.
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Professor Zijie Yan (严资杰), of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was murdered on campus.
This fundraiser for his daughters was set up by Yan's PhD advisor and closest friend.
Please kindly repost and donate.
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The end of the magical 1980s, when everything seemed possible.
As ever on June 4 this beautiful photo that shows the sheer joyousness & hope of
#TiananmenSquare
before the tanks rolled in
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Today's Science contains a letter from several Asian American organizations.
"Tensions between the United States and China are likely to increase, but Chinese Americans should not be treated as collateral damage."
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“When I was young,” John Hutchinson said, “I read Batchelor’s Fluid Dynamics from cover to cover.”
Hutchinson never taught fluid dynamics. I’ll ask him if he has ever read any solid mechanics textbook from cover to cover.😀
I have not read any textbook from cover to cover.🫢
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In the new building of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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When Daniel was young, he was a dazzling pianist. At gatherings, Denian and I were known as Daniel’s mom and dad.
“Do you play?” Other parents would ask us.
“No,” we would smile. “We grew up deprived.”
A photo taken at home in Princeton, 2002.
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Off we went to town for ice cream. Their parents went for a weekend trip to a wedding.
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Years ago, at a DARPA program review, George Whitesides gave a presentation, which has since made a lasting impression on me.
One of his slides mentioned “The Heilmeier Catechism”
More concisely—
What’s new?
Who cares?
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After a walk over 10,000 steps, we watched Tracy set up the hotpot.
“Take a photo of us,” Gang said.
She did.
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Some look at stars, others at genes, cells, and brains. Mechanicians look at how materials stretch, flex, twist, vibrate, flow, and fracture.
Timoshenko wrote many books, eminently readable. He was Ukrainian, and did more than anybody else in bringing mechanics to America.
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The extended family traveled to our home in Lexington for Thanksgiving.
I changed sheets of beds. I ordered a cake from Sweet Thyme. I ordered a dinner from Sichuan Grommet.
What else did I do?
It’s easy to be a gracious host when people have a low expectation of you.😅
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Thermodynamics is often called the science of energy. This designation steals accomplishments from other sciences, and diminishes accomplishments of thermodynamics. Rather, thermodynamics is the science of entropy.
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Deeply touched that colleagues come for a symposium to celebrate my 60th birthday.
The opening lecture will be given by Michael Rubinstein.
Time: 4:25 pm Today
Room: Boundary Waters A
See you all there.
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I'll be giving a seminar at the University of Michigan
@umichme
.
Time: 3:00 PM, Tuesday, 12 March 2024
Zoom link
Passcode 692510
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Thank you,
@BobbyChesney
, for pointing to this affidavit against Professor Gang Chen, of MIT, prepared by the Special Agent Matthew McCarthy, of the Department of Homeland Security.
In this thread, this document will be called
The McCarthy Document.
@SheenaGreitens
Here's the current charging document:
It's a criminal complaint, which is common as basis for an initial arrest. Most likely it will be superseded by an indictment by grand jury, possibly with additional charges and factual allegations.
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Soon after we started dating, I received a fellowship from Harvard University to be a graduate student.
The US-China relation has always been as temperamental as that of young lovers. We decided to marry.
I went to meet her parents.
We got marriage license on 10 June 1986.
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Professor Huajian Gao has just joined the faculty of Tsinghau University.
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Gibbs is timeless. Thermodynamics after him has remained unchanged in its aim and method. Carnot and Clausius invented entropy, Boltzmann and Planck discovered what entropy is, and Gibbs made entropy useful.
We are all Gibbsians.
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Our paper is online, entitled
"Making highly elastic and tough hydrogels from doughs"
a, A PEG hydrogel made from a batter is brittle.
b, A PEG hydrogel made from a dough is tough.
The paper describes the science.
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In Spring 2024, I teach this course on Advanced Elasticity. Emphasis is placed on the mechanics and thermodynamics of polymer networks. Examples include elastomers, gels, and dielectrics.
No background on mechanics, thermodynamics, or polymers is assumed.
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A paper is like a person. It takes time to appreciate them, and it is their imperfections that make them interesting.
After years of writing papers to critique it, we love this paper even more.
@ProfZhaoMIT
@ros_daw
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In the late afternoon on Friday, just before the plane landed, through the window, I saw the familiar Boston.
Denian would not be at home waiting for me. The fact was settling in.
Time would heal, many at the conference in Houston so kindly said.
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“Where is Nai-Nai (grandma)?” Jack-Jack asked. “Who is going to take care of her?”
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On our trip back from Houston to Boston, our flight was delayed for an hour.
Jim Rice, John Hutchinson, and I had a leisurely seafood lunch at the Houston-Bush International Airport.
I questioned them about early years of Fracture Mechanics.
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Lately we have heard numerous incidents that travelers are harassed by federal agents for hours at the U.S. border.
The horror stories make many of us feel so uncomfortable that we stop ALL international travels.
Stop border harassments!
The practice is too rampant.
UNCIVIL!
Government has many ways to gather information. For example, Government can detain your devices at the U.S. boarder, with neither warrant nor probable cause.
Government detained Gang Chen’s devices at Boston Logan Airport on 22 January 2020.
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On this day three years ago, 14 January 2021, federal agents raided the home of Gang Chen. They handcuffed, shackled, and jailed him.
They did so on the basis of a list of normal activities of a professor.
The abuse of power inspired a national movement—
We are all Gang Chen!
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A large number of Chinese graduate students are denied visas to the United States on the basis that their entry are deemed “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
How is such determination made? See this article in Science this week.
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Touring the White House.
Friday, 1 March 2024
“China means ceramics here,” I said to Gang Chen.
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Denian (庄得年) was born in Lanzhou, on 8 March 1962. Both of her parents graduated from college. She had two younger brothers.
This photo was taken in 1976, when the family lived in Jiayuguan.
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The new book by
@LallitAnand
, Ken Kamrin,
@SGovindjee
arrived today. The authors state that the book is for a course for undergraduate juniors and seniors. Topics include
Elasticity
Plasticity & creep
Fracture & fatigue
Viscoelasticity
Rubber elasticity
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Fermi taught at Columbia University in the summer of 1936, which resulted in this 150-page book.
My review on Amazon ➡️
“You return here to have a conversation with the master. After all, we read great novels repeatedly, even if we know all the plots.”
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@danielsuo
@suospeaks
My mom and dad were married in Shanghai. So were we. Mom would make sure that Denian and I had our wedding photos taken in Shanghai, not in Xian.
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People do not consistently name these two quantities:
A. Toughness (J/m2), Gc, measured using a sample with a precut crack.
B. Work of fracture (J/m3), Wc, measured using a sample with no precut crack.
They have different units. Be careful how each paper names them.
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Over two decades ago, I “discovered” Kittel-Kroemer, Thermal Physics. The book made me see the logic of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.
I posted as an enthusiastic review.
I’ve since noticed many shortcomings of the book, but still love it.
@zhigangsuo
@martinmbauer
@gravity_levity
@adamastokes
@RuiHuangUTAus
@Cyberplasm
I agree. Reif is really a great book. Reif also has a very interesting personal history. Among other things, after 29 years at Berkeley he became professor of Physics and Psychology at CMU.
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With Gang Chen and Yi Cui, at Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Washington, 1 March 2024
“I met my DOE program manager last evening,” Yi said, “and meet you all today. That’s one trip for two meetings—One stone kills two birds. I’m looking for the third bird now.”
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The balloon pops, a crack runs along the length of the balloon, and the balloon turns into a strip.
Look at the straight edges of the strip!
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Our little granddaughter was born in February 2020, a pandemic baby. She has a loud voice, is very sure of herself, and likes to make jokes.
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My parents felt that we had rushed, but they gave in. They hosted our wedding, in August 1986, in their hometown, Shanghai.
Soon after I left for America by myself.
My parents would later love Denian like their own daughter.
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This week’s Science reports solid state electrolytes for batteries. Multiple elements used together create percolating conduction paths.
Fast moving ions through disorder.
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A friend lost her daughter some years ago. She said to me, “I still wear my daughter’s clothes.”
I cannot wear Denian’s clothes, but remember many of them.
I saw this outfit in the closet the other day. This morning I found a photo, taken in Princeton, in Thanksgiving of 2001.
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Friday! After the last meeting of the week, at 3 pm, I drove to Winchester, and found the bench near the public library.
I took this photo of Denian on 13 July 2023, Thursday.
She would be hospitalized on the following Monday.
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Each year
@danielsuo
sets up a studio in the living room.
“Here is a 2023 portrait for you,” he said.
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Daniel: “Dog can be therapeutical for you, Dad.”
Me: “Therapeutical dog is great, but someone has to take care of it.”
Daniel: “Taking care of a dog is part of the therapy.”
A photo taken this afternoon by Michael.
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One hundred years of toughness
Griffith repays repeated study. Recently I noticed Section 11, in which he described an experiment on rupture of liquid.
Griffith 1921 the phenomena of rupture and flow in solids
@Junsoo_twit
@jasongsteck
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The birthday symposium
@SocEngScience
ended at the noon on Wednesday, followed by a reception.
What a surprise! My two sons and a niece showed up!
@danielsuo
@suospeaks
@april_zhuang
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“The name fractocohesive length is too long to remember,” Michael Rubinstein said. “I’ll call it Suo length.”
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In this paper, we develop a hydrogel–mesh composite for wound closure.
The hydrogel carries functional groups to adhere to tissues, and the mesh provides in-plane strength and stiffness.
The hydrogel and mesh entangle.
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#fractofact
fragmentation of a balloon
The internal pressure stretches the balloon.
The ball penetrates the balloon and create multiple cracks.
The time is so short that the inertia keeps the balloon stretched, which drives the multiple cracks to extend.
Physics, elasticity, material deformation.
Bowling ball vs giant balloon. Source:
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I set Denian’s wedding photo as the wallpaper of my phone the other day. The photo was taken in Shanghai, in the summer of 1986.
She was beautiful, achingly beautiful.
It became unbearable each time I looked at the phone.
I replaced the wallpaper with a photo of Parker Meadow.
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Congratulations to Prof. Markus Buehler on winning the J. R. Rice Medal "for contributions to the mechanics of protein materials, bioinspired materials, and multiscale analyses of solids".
The award delights many people. Markus was a student of H. Gao, who was a student of Rice.
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