| News Date | News Details |
|---|---|
| May 1, 2008 |
American Academy of Arts and Sciences names four Cornell academics as fellows This year's class of American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellows includes four Cornell faculty members in disciplines ranging from mathematics to psychology. |
| April 7, 2008 |
Cornell Robot sets a Record for Distance Walking We're not sure what brand of batteries it was using, but the Cornell Ranger robot just kept going and going April 3 when it set an unofficial world record by walking nonstop for 45 laps -- a little over 9 kilometers or 5.6 miles -- around the Barton Hall running track. |
| March 30, 2008 |
NY Times article by Steve Strogatz and Samuel Arbesman, "A Journey to Baseball's Alternate Universe" A New York Times article, written by TAM Professor, Steve Strogatz, and Computational Biology grad. student, Samuel Arbesman, scientifically analyzes Joe DiMaggio's amazing 56-game hitting streak. "A Journey to Baseball's Alternate Universe", The New York Times, March 30, 2008 |
| March 14, 2008 |
Genes on the Move Biology class is all about putting living things into categories, based on their differences. And creatures are different because they have different genes. But life wasn’t always like that. Radiolab on WNYC |
| January 25, 2008 |
Six Degrees Chances are you've heard of the 'small world' idea of six degrees of separation. But is it correct? The idea traces back to an experiment begun in 1967 by Stanley Milgram, in which he tried to trace how many acquaintances it would take to pass a letter between two randomly selected people. The result that entered the public consciousness was that in general it took six steps or fewer to bridge the gap between any two people. But is that result accurate? |
| January 17, 2008 |
The Lure of the Dragonfly Seeking a Quantitative Understanding of Flapping Flight We study general flapping flight as a means to understand the essential mechanisms shared not only among insects, but also among birds, fish, and leaves fluttering and tumbling in the air. |
| October 3, 2007 |
Sputnik Space and me Sputnik Space and me |
| September 14, 2007 |
Harry "Don" Conway H.D. Conway Memorial Statement T&AM Party for Don Conway (2004) Obituary for Harry "Don" Conway |
| August 28, 2007 |
C.U. Team Discovers Ring Origin August 24, 2007 - 12:00am By Seth Jacobson The Cornell Cassini imaging team, in collaboration with other astronomers from around the world, has discovered the possible origin of the G ring around Saturn. Their discoveries bring science one-step closer to understanding the formation of Saturn’s ring system, one of space’s many mysteries. |
| July 11, 2007 |
Maths explains why 'silly walks' are silly Article from: Agence France-Presse July 11, 2007 09:23am SCIENTISTS have explained mathematically why the famous "silly walks" of Monty Python's John Cleese have never caught on in the long history of Homo sapiens. The giant, leg-twirling strides of silly walks may enable an individual to leap around swiftly but are simply too expensive in metabolic energy compared to conventional locomotion, according to a paper published on Wednesday by Britain's Royal Society. Manoj Srinavasan and Andy Ruina, researchers in applied mechanics at New York's Cornell University, drew up a geometrical model of human walking and running. They found that, in essence, each leg is a "telescoping actuator'' that can change its length. In walking, the body vaults forwards in circular arcs, driven forward by the pendular swing of the legs, with the toe and heel providing the push-off and landing point for each movement. In running, though, the body travels from one parabolic arc to the next, with a bounce in between. Mr Srinavasan and Mr Ruina then factored in the metabolic cost of three drains on energy on both movements. These are the energy expenditure required to keep the body's basic functions ticking over; the cost of swinging the legs; and the cost incurred when a leg is in contact with the ground. Their equations showed emphatically that walking and running are the most energy-efficient gaits for our species, honed by millions of years of evolution. "Inverted pendulum walking is energetically optimal at low speeds and step lengths, and impulsive running is energetically optimal at higher speeds,'' they say. Silly walks gathered cult status in the British TV comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus, when the gangling Cleese, dressed in a pin-stripe suit and bowler hat, cavorted around as a bureaucrat in a "Ministry of Silly Walks.'' The research, which appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, is potentially useful in biomechanics and robotics, where scientists need to understand mathematically how humans (or their robot mimics) move, and the energy cost of doing it. |
| June 6, 2007 |
The mathematical way to ride a bike Telegraph.co.uk By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 12:01am BST 06/06/2007 While not quite as easy a feat as riding a bicycle, mathematicians have for the first time established conclusive equations that describe what gives a pushed bike its stability. Since the bicycle's invention some time in the 1860s, mathematicians have tried to sum up bike riding with equations based on Newton's laws of motion.advertisement One of the first attempts dates back to pioneering work in 1897 by French mathematician Emmanuel Carvallo. In 1899, the Cambridge undergraduate Francis Whipple had a go, using equations that had more general applicability (though were slightly wrong). Today, in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, a conclusive mathematical account of bike riding is described in a dense 28-page paper by Professor Andy Ruina of Cornell University, Jim Papadopoulos of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Jaap Meijaard of Nottingham University, and Prof Arend Schwab of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. It was once thought that the stability is because the wheels act like gyroscopes to keep the bike upright. But the secret is that there "is no one secret," said Prof Ruina. As many as 17 different parameters are crucial, from the radius and mass of the wheels to the position of the centre of the mass of the bicycle, to the angle of the steering axis. "That is why it has taken 120 years to get it right. We have not found anything simpler," Prof Ruina, co-author of "Linearised dynamics equations for the balance and steer of a bicycle", told The Daily Telegraph. The team showed that Carvallo and Whipple were on the right track, though the credit for cracking the problem goes to German engineer E. Döhring, who published his meticulous study in 1955. Today's "definitive review" underlines bicycles' amazing ability to balance themselves. "You can give a bike a push and it will go 50 metres without falling. Even if it is knocked sideways, it will pop up again," said Prof Ruina. As for how people are able to ride and steer a bike, "that is a much more subtle question," he admitted. Prof Schwab is now working on incorporating the effects of the rider on the bike. Chris Boardman, the Olympic gold-medal winning cyclist, who was in London yesterday to promote next month's Tour de France, said he was surprised to learn it took so long to mathematically describe cycling. "The scientists can come back to me if they come up with a formula for how not to fall off, but perhaps that will take another 100 years." |
| February 15, 2007 |
Prof. Burns member of Cassini team that discovered new rings of Saturn Joe Burns, the Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering and Professor of Astronomy is a member of the Cassini imaging team that recently discovered new, faint rings of Saturn. The rings can be seen on the cover of the December 2006 National Geographic. Burns uses dynamical modeling to demonstrate how the structure within the rings has evolved due to the complex nonlinear mechanical interactions between the grains that comprise the rings. |
| January 8, 2007 |
Mathematical society honors Strogatz for research scope and style By Lauren Gold Steve Strogatz, Cornell professor of theoretical and applied mechanics and director of the Center for Applied Mathematics, is the 2007 recipient of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award. The award cites Strogatz' ability to tweak the popular imagination with novel research, engaging writing and a flair for finding new answers to an old question: What does complex math have to do with real life? The award was presented Jan. 6 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans. Strogatz's recent research topics include: the social networking phenomenon known as "six degrees of separation," circadian rhythms in humans, blinking patterns in fireflies, and the swaying of the Millennium Bridge. His 2003 book "Sync: the Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order" describes the order behind such phenomena as traffic jams, firing neurons and solar system dynamics. And for fun, Strogatz plays chess (last year beating a visiting grandmaster). The award "recognizes a person from within the mathematical sciences community who made a consistent effort to reach out to a wider audience. Strogatz has made significant contact with the wider scientific community. The style of 'Sync' and its sales indicate that it is intended for and has reached an even wider audience. The volume of this work is impressive, but the quality and breadth are spectacular as well." The JPBM represents the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
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| January 4, 2007 |
Frank Moon wins mechanical engineering Lyapunov Award By Anne Ju Francis C. Moon, the Joseph C. Ford Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell, has won the 2007 Lyapunov Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The Lyapunov Award is given by the Technical Committee on Multibody Systems and Nonlinear Dynamics (MSND-TC), which is part of the ASME Design Engineering Division. It recognizes lifetime contributions to the field of applied nonlinear dynamics. Beginning in the late 1970s, Moon, along with colleagues in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, helped establish Cornell as one of the leading centers for the study of chaos theory, especially its application to mechanical systems. He and his students developed experimental methods to test some of the new mathematical ideas in chaotic dynamics and fractals. Moon published several popular books on chaos, including "Chaotic Vibrations and Chaotic and Fractal Dynamics." His most recent book, "The Machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Franz Reuleaux," will be published this spring. The ASME award is named for the 19th-century Russian applied mathematician Aleksandr Lyapunov (1857-1918), who established basic ideas about stability in dynamic systems. Moon will receive the award at ASME's Sixth International Conference on Multibody Systems, Nonlinear Dynamics and Control in Las Vegas, Sept. 4-7. Moon, who teaches dynamics and robotics, has taught in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering since 1987, and served as its director from 1987 to 1992. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1975, and also served seven years as chair of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. His research interests include nonlinear and chaotic vibrations, superconducting bearings, electromagnetic launchers, smart structures, fluid-elastic vibrations and dynamics of machines. Prior to his tenure at Cornell, Moon was an assistant professor in aerospace and mechanical engineering at Princeton University from 1967 to 1974. In 1996 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He has published nearly 140 journal articles and five books, and he has edited three books. For the past decade, Moon has served as curator of Cornell's collection of Reuleaux Kinematic Models. He has written several papers on 19th-century kinematics and dynamics of machines. |
