Over a long time, people was fascinated by the idea that if things can be clearly described using mathematical formulation, the world will be predictable. It happens in fluid mechanics, in which the big set of Navier-Stokes equations used to be the triumph for unraveling the world of fluids. However, turbulence ruins the good will. One vortex can be resolved. Many vortexes become formidable. When I was a UG student in the course introducing fluid mechanics, I was informed that the complexity of turbulence would be unveiled some day. However, today is still not the day.
This was part of the reason I moved to solid mechanics. I guess it is more predictable since solid does not flow therefore has no turbulence. I spent many years using solid mechanics to describe stuffs that were inelastically deformed under force or impulse. The research was tough but the faith was steady. Even though I did not develop beautiful maths for predicting deformation of solid of various geometries and under different forces, I believed that it is just a matter of time or of how powerful a computer could be. However, dislocations, which are the main carriers of plastic strain, ruin the belief again. When I started reading text about dislocation, I wondered why one stationary dislocation was so easy to understand and but no one could write clear text about many dislocations. It takes another several years for me to realize that today is still not the day for understanding many dislocations.
How people understand and develop the world then? A fixed wing aircraft can fly not because turbulent flow has been resolved. A metal can be formed into various shape not because the interaction of many dislocations has been resolved. In most cases, we describe the world using simple relations between phenomena and results. The relation may be a straight line passing between many significantly scattered experimental data points, far from accurate and predictable. However, it is used.
What behind phenomenon-result relations is messy.Well, let us use a more scientific world to name mess. For materials, we may call it amorphous. For many other problems, it may be called complexity. Whatever how it is called, this is the place I am attacking.
This was part of the reason I moved to solid mechanics. I guess it is more predictable since solid does not flow therefore has no turbulence. I spent many years using solid mechanics to describe stuffs that were inelastically deformed under force or impulse. The research was tough but the faith was steady. Even though I did not develop beautiful maths for predicting deformation of solid of various geometries and under different forces, I believed that it is just a matter of time or of how powerful a computer could be. However, dislocations, which are the main carriers of plastic strain, ruin the belief again. When I started reading text about dislocation, I wondered why one stationary dislocation was so easy to understand and but no one could write clear text about many dislocations. It takes another several years for me to realize that today is still not the day for understanding many dislocations.
How people understand and develop the world then? A fixed wing aircraft can fly not because turbulent flow has been resolved. A metal can be formed into various shape not because the interaction of many dislocations has been resolved. In most cases, we describe the world using simple relations between phenomena and results. The relation may be a straight line passing between many significantly scattered experimental data points, far from accurate and predictable. However, it is used.
What behind phenomenon-result relations is messy.Well, let us use a more scientific world to name mess. For materials, we may call it amorphous. For many other problems, it may be called complexity. Whatever how it is called, this is the place I am attacking.