Seminar: Physics of food: Soft complex materials – Overview

In this seminar, we explore fascinating aspects of soft and liquid matter, drawing inspiration from everyday phenomena related to the physics of food. From the texture of meals to the way liquids flow, the topics we cover span a variety of examples:

• Viscoelastic materials: Learn about the rheology of food textures, from gooey cheeses to thick sauces.
• Granular flow: Explore the flow behavior of materials like wheat in grain storage.
• Hydrodynamics: Dive into effects like the famous “tears of wine.”
• Phase transitions: Uncover the science behind melting chocolate or the perfect texture of boiled noodles.
• Thermodynamics of cooking: Understand the physics behind cooking a perfect medium-rare steak.

And much more!

This seminar is open to all master students, and no prerequisites are required to join. However, we will be working with mathematical methods from the fields of non-linear dynamics and thermodynamics. Having some prior knowledge in these areas can be beneficial.

Unlike traditional seminars, we aim to create an environment where everyone contributes in their own preferred way. Whether you’re keen on presenting a literature review, solving analytical exercises, or working on numerical simulations—Your active participation will shape the seminar into something unique; it’s as engaging as you make it!

Organization and Application

• Time and Place: Thurdsay 14:00 c.t. - 16:00 in A450 (Room-Finder), Theresienstraße 37.
• The first meeting will be on Thurdsay, 24.10.2024.

We ask interested students to send a CV and a short letter of motivation (max 1 page) to
Tobias.Roth@physik.uni-muenchen.de until 22.10.2024.

Literature

After we have distributed the topics, we will provide you pertinent references which may act as a good starting point for your own literature research.