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SUMMARY:Fluids with attitude - Sluckin\, T (University of Southampton)
DTSTART:20130107T100000Z
DTEND:20130107T110000Z
UID:TALK42301@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:This talk includes: an account of the early development of liq
 uid crystal science (c1888-1940)\, a history of key mathematical ideas\, a
  discussion of devices in liquid crystals\, and finally a personal view of
  future perspectives. \n\nFriedrich Reinitzer (1888\, Prague) found that c
 holesteryl benzoate exhibited two fluid phases\, one of which was cloudy. 
 Otto Lehmann (Karlsruhe) studied similar compounds\, which seemed both liq
 uid and crystal\, hence the term liquid crystal. In France Georges Friedel
  (1922) realised that liquid crystals were instead orientationally ordered
  fluids\, inventing the terms nematic\, smectic and cholesteric. The first
  (swarm) theory was due to Emil Bose (Danzig\, 1908). More successful was 
 the distinguished Swedish theoretical physicist Carl Wilhelm Oseen\, who c
 onstructed a hydrostatic theory of liquid crystals (1922-44). Oseens theor
 y explained Frederikss results from the USSR on threshold fields\, but his
  Ph.D. student Adolf Anzelius was not able to build a consistent dynamical
  theory. \n\nThe first statistical mechanical theory was a mean field pict
 ure based on Curie-Weiss magnetism\, due to Franois Grandjean (France\, 19
 17). His work was ignored. The later 1958 Maier-Saupe theory is essentiall
 y identical. The liquid crystal order parameter is due to the Russian phys
 icist Victor Tsvetkov in 1941. \n\nLiquid crystal devices emerged in the U
 SA in the 1960s. The TN cell was patented in 1970. There remains dispute o
 ver its discovery. Device development was accompanied by enormous theoreti
 cal and mathematical activity. The current hydrodynamic theory due to Eric
 ksen and Leslie in 1966\, and the Landau theory due to de Gennes in 1970\,
  have been immensely influential. The importance of lcds has focussed math
 ematical interest in liquid crystals in recent years\, but in the future t
 hese ideas may be even more important in understanding processes in living
  cells.\n\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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