DIEP seminar by Prof. Muhittin Mungan
Disordered materials subject to a fluctuating environment can self-organize into a complex history-dependent response, retaining a memory of the driving. In sheared amorphous solids, self-organization is established by the emergence of a persistent system of mechanical instabilities that can repeatedly be triggered by the driving, leading to a state of high mechanical reversibility. As a result of self-organization, the response of the system becomes correlated with the dynamics of its environment.
These correlations furnish a mechanism by which a system can sense and respond to its environment. In fact, they can be regarded as the system establishing a representation of its environment in the sense that the dynamics of system and environment mirror each other. Such forms of self-organization emerge across a wide variety of soft matter systems, suggesting that they are generic and hence may depend very little on the underlying specifics.
In his talk Prof. Muhittin Mungan will describe self-organization and memory formation in a model disordered material, the sheared amorphous solid. Then, the seminar will turn to the question of what self-organization in driven disordered materials can teach us about how simple organisms lacking a brain, such as bacteria, may sense and adapt to their changing environment.
If you wish to attend this seminar online, please send an email to r.lier@uva.nl to receive the zoom-link.