[Colloquium] Computations in Science Seminar -- Crackling Noise: Learning from Magnets about Earthquakes?, Karin Dahmen

[Robert Schroll]

If you would like to meet with the speaker or join us for a meal,
please contact Konstantin Turitsyn <turitsyn at uchicago.edu>

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                    COMPUTATIONS IN SCIENCE SEMINAR

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           Wednesday, December 19, 2007. KPTC 206, 12:30 p.m.
               (Discussion over bag-lunch at 12:15 p.m.)

                              Karin Dahmen

       Crackling Noise: Learning from Magnets about Earthquakes?


Abstract:
Models suggest that the earth and magnets crackle alike!   Recent
studies show that slowly increasing magnetic fields in magnets can
trigger so-called "magnetizing avalanches". It turns out that we can
model statistics of earthquakes, especially in irregularly shaped
fault zones, very similarly, and this similarity motivates a new way
of analyzing seismic data.  I will show how we can understand the
universal, i.e. detail independent, effects of disorder in both
systems in terms of the theory of phase transitions.

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Upcoming seminars:

January 16, 2008
     Hassan Nagib, Illinois Institute of Technology
     High Reynolds Number Wall-Bounded Turbulence, the Approach to a 
Self-Consistent Asymptotic State, and Universality of the Karman Constant

Further details: http://mrsec.uchicago.edu/Comp_in_Sci/