Stephen W. Morris

Professor

Undergraduate Associate Chair


Experimental Nonlinear Physics; 
Nonequilibrium pattern formation, 
convection in simple fluids and liquid crystals,
segregation in granular media,
geophysical patterns.

Office: (416) 978 - 6810

Lab:  (416) 978 - 0137
e-mail: 

Brief CV: B.Sc., British Columbia (1981) 
M.Sc., British Columbia (1985) 
Ph.D., Toronto (1991) 
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow, Santa Barbara (1991-1993) 
APUS/SAC Teaching Award, Toronto (2003) 
Faculty of Arts & Science Outstanding Teaching Award, Toronto (2004) 
Senior Visiting Fellow, The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematics, Cambridge University (2005). 
Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall, Cambridge University (2006).

 

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.- Henri Poincaré

Research group homepage


Research Interests:

  1. • Rayleigh-Bénard and Bénard-Marangoni convection.

  2. • Electroconvection in suspended smectic liquid crystal films.

  3. • Segregation of granular media in a drum mixer.

  4. • Fracture networks in directionally dried mud, and columnar joints.

  5. • Convection at autocatalytic chemical reaction fronts.

  6. • Pattern formation in turbidity flows.

  7. • The rope coiling effect and the “fluid mechanical sewing machine”.

  8. • Washboard road.

  9. • Ice morphology: ripples on icicles, spikes on ice cubes.

  10. • Faraday waves on shaken fluids.

  11. • Chladni patterns on vibrated plates.

  12. • Pattern formation viewed aesthetically as Art, either from Nature or in the laboratory.

  13. • The Physics of everyday phenomena.

Recent publications


Recent seminars and colloquia


Teaching (2008-2009):

 


Go to the Nonlinear Physics Group home page



The Experimental Nonlinear Physics Group, Dept. of Physics, University of Toronto

60 St. George St. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 1A7. Phone (416) 978 - 6810

 

  1. • phy1530: Fluid Mechanics, Fall 2008.

  2. • phy459: Macroscopic Physics, last given Spring 2008.

  3. • phy101s: Patterns from Chaos, last given Spring 2008.

  4. • phy2108: Pattern Formation in Systems Far From Equilibrium, last given Fall 2007

  5. • sci199y-c: Emergence and Self-Organization in Nature, last given 2004-2005.

  6. • phy2314: Pattern Formation in Nonequilibrium Systems, last given Spring 2004.

  7. • phy341: Physical Science in Contemporary Society, last given Spring 2004.

Past teaching:

  1. • phy131: Introduction to Physics I, Fall 2009.

  2. • phy132: Introduction to Physics II, Spring 2010.