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At a fluid interface or in a solid film, gentle structureless forces can produce striking concentrations of stress and singular shapes. Examples are the crumpling of a sheet of paper, the spontaneous folding of layer-forming surfactants in monolayers or in bulk, or the formation of sharp points and filaments in fluids under stress. In all these phenomena, the ability of the interface to bend into the third dimension acts in concert with interfacial stress to enable focusing. Many new phenomena of this sort have been revealed and have been shown to obey asymptotic scaling laws that lends insight into the essential nature of the focusing process. Often understanding is lacking or fragmented.
To highlight these puzzles and reveal further implications of deformable interface structures, we will bring together scientists who study these structures. These include engineers, physicists, mathematicians, geologists and computer scientists from academia, government and industry. The purpose of this workshop is to examine these phenomena from a common point of view, in order to unify our understanding. The meeting will be held at and near the University of Chicago, partly in the new Center for Integrative Science. We will convene the evening of Thursday, November 17 and continue throughout the following Friday and Saturday. There will be about 15 invited talks, poster sessions, and time for discussion.
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