UK Nonlinear News Issue 48, September 2007

Articles and Reviews

News

  • A meeting on the fundamentals and techniques in applicable fluid dynamics will be held at the School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, on 21 September. The meeting is being held to mark the retirement of Professor Derek Ingham. For further information contact John Merkin.
  • The Vadim Kuznetsov Memorial Issue on Integrable Systems and Related Topics of the open-access journal "Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications" (SIGMA) has been completed successfully and is freely available online.
  • Cambridge University Press and the Journal of Fluid Mechanics establish the Batchelor Prize to recognise outstanding research in fluid mechanics
  • A meeting to mark the launch of the Oxford Centre for Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations is being held on 24th October 2007
  • Sadly, the deaths were announced recently of the two of the pioneers and champions of nonlinear science: Martin Kruskal (Dec 26, 2006), and Alwyn Scott (Jan 11, 2007).

    Kruskal was famous for many things, but those in the nonlinear community will remember him best as the modern discoverer of the soliton, along with Norman Zabusky. Their pioneering paper (PRL 15, 240, 1965) and other later works opened up the whole area of integrable systems.

    Scott, together with Chu and McLaughlin, wrote the first review on soliton theory (Proc. IEEE, 61, 1443, 1973), which provided many researchers with their first introduction to the field. He also alerted the modern world to the then forgotten first observation of the solitary wave by John Scott Russell in 1834. Scott and McLauglin also pioneered the use of perturbation theory in treating near-integrable models (PRA 18, 1652, 1978). More recently Scott championed the idea of soliton-like localized processes on biological macromolecules, in particular the Davydon soliton. Throughout his life Scott published not just numerous scientific papers, but many books on nonlinear waves, neurophysics, and conciousness studies. Most recently he undertook the mammoth task of editing the Encyclopedia of Nonlinear Science. He was working on the final pages of a history of Nonlinear Science when he died, The Nonlinear Universe.

Appointments

  • The School of Mathematical Sciences at Loughborough University appointed Uwe Thiele as Reader in Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics starting September 1st 2007. His research focuses on the dynamics of simple/complex fluids at interfaces and in confined geometries by modelling the structure-forming interplay of wettability, capillarity, chemical reactions and phase transitions with transport processes on the meso-scale (continuum models) and on the micro-scale (discrete models).

Visitors

  • Jeff Moehlis, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara who has research interests in applied dynamical systems, will be on sabbatical at the Department of Engineering Mathematics at the University of Bristol from August 20 until December 24, 2007.

Recent Theses

Jobs

  • The Nonlinear Dynamics group at the Center for Theoretical Physics in Marseille has an opening for a two-year postdoctoral position. This position is part of the ANR EGYPT project on gyrokinetics applied to turbulent plasmas. This project consists of a network composed by the Controlled Fusion Department of the CEA Cadarache, the Mathematics Institute of the University of Strasbourg and the Plasma Physics Lab of the University of Nancy, in addition to the Center for Theoretical Physics in Marseille. The deadline for application is November 15, 2007.
  • Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Applications are invited for a position at the Lecturer/Senior Lecturer level in Applied Mathematics within the Department of Mathematics. The position is intended for candidates with a PhD in Applied Mathematics, or related area, who demonstrate a strong commitment to excellence in research and teaching at all levels of Applied Mathematics. Extended closing date: 28 September 2008

Postgraduate opportunities: Leeds  Warwick  Surrey

Meetings, Conferences and Events

Conference Listing by date.

Publishers' Announcements

WWW addresses for Publishers

Journal News

  • A special collection of articles that highlight the breadth of high-quality research published in Nonlinearity during 2006 is freely available until 31 December 2007
  • The journal "Regular and Chaotic Dynamics" is now published not by Turpion but by MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica and distributed by Springer
  • Nonlinearity are pleased to report that, on the release of ISI's 2006 Journal Citation Reports, Nonlinearity's impact factor has increased to 1.288.

Issue Forty nine: December 2007

Issue Forty nine is scheduled for December 2007. Submission of news (new courses, meetings, conferences, new appointments, jobs, new research directions etc.), comments or articles about any aspect of nonlinearity in the UK are very welcome and should arrive by 23 November 2007.