Life at Small Scales
a.a. 2025/26
Responsabile didattico: Cristian Marchioli
Durata: 28 ore
Periodo: primo semestre
Programma: In this course, the world as experienced by micron or sub-micron-sized objects/organisms surrounded by a fluid medium will be discussed. The uniqueness of studying such systems is the liberty of writing down simplified equations to describe their behavior, leading to a slew of elegant analytical solutions otherwise impossible in the case of their larger counterparts. Examples of these systems range from simple inanimate spherical particles to the description of the motion of bacteria, sperm cells, etc. Such work was also part of Einstein's PhD thesis - calculating the alteration to viscosity by the presence of a dilute suspension of particles and the diffusivity of a particle due to its Brownian motion, both of which are among the many discussed in the course. At the end of the course, the students will be able to construct analytical solutions to PDEs describing simplified flow systems and get a flavor of how these solutions form the basis of large-scale simulations used in applications such as atmospheric/marine pollutant transport.