The packing of shapes has interested humankind for millenia.  From the packing of cannonballs on ships to charcoal briquets in bags, finding how to fit the most number of objects into a space has been a longstanding problem that has puzzled such great minds as Aristotle,  Kepler, Hilbert and others. Over the past decade, scientists have discovered ways to synthesize nanoscale building blocks of matter larger than individual atoms or molecules, but smaller than a red blood cell, and in a wide variety of materials and shapes, including polyhedral shapes. The assembly of these building blocks into complex structures with novel properties remains one of the foremost challenges in nanotechnology, and involves understanding the role of shape, entropy, and packing. In this talk we present new insights on packing and assembly, and present surprising findings from computer simulations predicting a rich diversity and complexity of structures possible with polyhedra.

THIS COLLOQUIUM IS JOINTLY SPONSORED BY FIELDS INSTITUTE RESEARCH IN MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES AND THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS.

Sharon C. Glotzer is the Stuart W. Churchill Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also holds faculty appointments in Physics, Applied Physics, and Macromolecular Science and Engineering.  She received the B.S. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1987, and the Ph.D. degree from Boston University in 1993, all in physics.  Glotzer’s research focuses on computational nanoscience and simulation of soft matter, self-assembly and materials design, and is sponsored by the US Department of Defense, US Department of Energy, US National Science Foundation, the J.S. McDonnell Foundation, and the Simons Foundation.  Sharon C. Glotzer is an internationally recognized scientist, with over 170 publications and over 270 invited, keynote and plenary talks on five continents.  In addition to numerous awards and honors, including the Charles M.A. Stine Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Glotzer was elected in 2011 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow, and was named a Simons Investigator in 2012, the inaugural year of that program. Glotzer is re-examining the notion of shape and its role in the bottom-up assembly of new materials. Her research focuses on the self assembly of nanoscale systems, looking at entropy, shape and form at a new level, opening doors to brand new creations.