Harry Swinney

Harry L. Swinney (born April 10, 1939) is an American physicist noted for his contributions to the field of nonlinear dynamics.

Harry Leonard Swinney
Born
Harry Leonard Swinney

(1939-04-10)April 10, 1939
Opelousas, Louisiana, U.S.
NationalityUnited States
Alma mater
Known forChaos, pattern formation, and fluid dynamics experiments
Awards
  • Boltzmann Medal (2013)
  • Lewis Fry Richardson Medal (2012)
  • Jürgen Moser Award (2007)
  • American Physical Society Fluid Dynamics Prize (1995)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Institutions
Doctoral advisorHerman Z. Cummins

Personal life

Harry Leonard Swinney was born in Opelousas, Louisiana, on April 10, 1939. His parents were Leonard R. Swinney and Ethel Bertheaud Swinney. In 1967 Harry Swinney married Gloria T. Luyas, and in 1978 they had a son, Brent Luyas Swinney. Brent died of cancer in 1995 and Gloria died of cancer in 1997. Harry Swinney married Lizabeth Kelley on August 12, 2000.

Education

Swinney attended elementary school in Austin, Texas, and in 1957 graduated from Homer Louisiana High School. In 1961 he was awarded a B.S. with honors in physics by Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), where he was inspired by his physics professor and research mentor, Jack H. Taylor. In 1968 he was awarded a Ph.D. in physics by Johns Hopkins University; his advisor was Herman Z. Cummins.

Career

Swinney was an assistant professor of physics at New York University (1971–73) and was associate professor and then professor at the City College of the City University of New York (1973–78). Since 1978 Swinney has been on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, where he is now Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair of Physics and director of the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics.

Honors

Swinney is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1992) and a fellow of the American Physical Society (1977), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1999), and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2009). He was awarded the American Physical Society Fluid Dynamics Prize (1995), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Jürgen Moser Prize (2007), the European Geosciences Union Richardson Medal (2012), and the Boltzmann Medal (2013) of the Commission on Statistical Physics of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. He was a Guggenheim Fellow (1983–84) and he was inducted into The Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars (1984). He was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by Rhodes College (2002), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2008), and the University of Buenos Aires (2010).

Research contributions

Swinney conducts research on instabilities, chaos, and pattern formation in diverse systems, including fluid, chemical, and granular media. Swinney together with his students, postdocs, and other collaborators have:

  • determined the decay rate of order parameter fluctuations for fluids near the critical point [1][2]
  • observed a transition to chaos—deterministic yet nonperiodic behavior—in experiments on a fluid flow [3][4][5]
  • characterized chaos from time series data by computing the largest Lyapunov exponent (rate of loss of predictability) [6] and the mutual information (general dependence of two variables) [7]
  • discovered multiple transitions to different patterns of fluid flow between concentric independently rotating cylinders [8]
  • designed a laboratory experiment that yielded a stable vortex for conditions mimicking those on Jupiter.[9] This result provides a plausible explanation of the stability of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, which was first observed by Robert Hooke in 1664.
  • observed the emergence of a spatial pattern in a chemical system,[10] as predicted in 1952 by Alan Turing
  • determined the scaling of power dissipated in strongly turbulent flow between concentric rotating cylinders [11][12]
  • observed anomalous diffusion and Lévy flights in a fluid flow [13]
  • discovered localized structures, dubbed "oscillons", in an oscillating granular layer;[14] oscillons were subsequently found in many dynamical systems. The granular experiments also investigated various extended spatial patterns,[15] shock waves,[16] and fluctuations.[17]
  • observed resonant pattern formation with frequency locking in chemical systems [18][19]
  • found fractal cascades of waves on the edges of leaves, flowers, and garbage bags [20][21]
  • found a resonance in internal wave boundary currents generated by tidal flow on a slope; this resonance apparently selects the angle (typically three degrees) of the continental slopes of the oceans [22]
  • discovered a new protein, Slf, which is produced by neighboring colonies of Paenibacillus dendritiformis bacteria.[23] Slf is lethal to bacteria near the edge of a colony that faces another P. dendritiformis colony.[24]
  • found that fluctuations in the number N of bacteria swimming in a volume varied as N^(3/4), in contrast to the N^(1/2) scaling of fluctuations for systems in thermodynamic equilibrium [25]

Other

Swinney, together with Rajarshi Roy and Kenneth Showalter, founded a two-week Hands-On Research School for early career scientists from developing countries: handsonresearch.org. The schools, sponsored by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, are described in a 3-minute video here.

gollark: You can just install potatOS on all your devices and do it.
gollark: CraftOS-PC did not work, see.
gollark: Or semirewrite it;
gollark: Maybe I should rewrite heavlisp using the lessons learned from writing osmarkslisp.
gollark: I haven't tested it, I'm testing CraftOS-PC.

References
  1. Swinney, H. L.; Cummins, Herman Z. (1968-07-05). "Thermal Diffusivity of CO2 in the Critical Region". Physical Review. American Physical Society (APS). 171 (1): 152–160. doi:10.1103/physrev.171.152. ISSN 0031-899X.
  2. Swinney, Harry L.; Henry, Donald L. (1973-11-01). "Dynamics of Fluids near the Critical Point: Decay Rate of Order-Parameter Fluctuations". Physical Review A. American Physical Society (APS). 8 (5): 2586–2617. doi:10.1103/physreva.8.2586. ISSN 0556-2791.
  3. Gollub, J. P.; Swinney, Harry L. (1975-10-06). "Onset of Turbulence in a Rotating Fluid". Physical Review Letters. American Physical Society (APS). 35 (14): 927–930. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.35.927. ISSN 0031-9007.
  4. Fenstermacher, P. R.; Swinney, Harry L.; Gollub, J. P. (1979-09-11). "Dynamical instabilities and the transition to chaotic Taylor vortex flow". Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Cambridge University Press (CUP). 94 (1): 103–128. doi:10.1017/s0022112079000963. ISSN 0022-1120.
  5. Brandstater, A.; Swinney, Harry L. (1987-03-01). "Strange attractors in weakly turbulent Couette-Taylor flow". Physical Review A. American Physical Society (APS). 35 (5): 2207–2220. doi:10.1103/physreva.35.2207. ISSN 0556-2791.
  6. Wolf, Alan; Swift, Jack B.; Swinney, Harry L.; Vastano, John A. (1985). "Determining Lyapunov exponents from a time series". Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena. Elsevier BV. 16 (3): 285–317. doi:10.1016/0167-2789(85)90011-9. ISSN 0167-2789.
  7. Fraser, Andrew M.; Swinney, Harry L. (1986-02-01). "Independent coordinates for strange attractors from mutual information". Physical Review A. American Physical Society (APS). 33 (2): 1134–1140. doi:10.1103/physreva.33.1134. ISSN 0556-2791.
  8. Andereck, C. David; Liu, S. S.; Swinney, Harry L. (1986). "Flow regimes in a circular Couette system with independently rotating cylinders". Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Cambridge University Press (CUP). 164: 155–183. doi:10.1017/s0022112086002513. ISSN 0022-1120.
  9. Sommeria, Jöel; Meyers, Steven D.; Swinney, Harry L. (1988). "Laboratory simulation of Jupiter's Great Red Spot". Nature. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 331 (6158): 689–693. doi:10.1038/331689a0. ISSN 0028-0836.
  10. Ouyang, Q.; Swinney, Harry L. (1991). "Transition from a uniform state to hexagonal and striped Turing patterns". Nature. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 352 (6336): 610–612. doi:10.1038/352610a0. ISSN 0028-0836.
  11. Lathrop, Daniel P.; Fineberg, Jay; Swinney, Harry L. (1992-11-01). "Transition to shear-driven turbulence in Couette-Taylor flow". Physical Review A. American Physical Society (APS). 46 (10): 6390–6405. doi:10.1103/physreva.46.6390. ISSN 1050-2947.
  12. Lewis, Gregory S.; Swinney, Harry L. (1999-05-01). "Velocity structure functions, scaling, and transitions in high-Reynolds-number Couette-Taylor flow". Physical Review E. American Physical Society (APS). 59 (5): 5457–5467. doi:10.1103/physreve.59.5457. ISSN 1063-651X.
  13. Solomon, T. H.; Weeks, Eric R.; Swinney, Harry L. (1993-12-13). "Observation of anomalous diffusion and Lévy flights in a two-dimensional rotating flow". Physical Review Letters. American Physical Society (APS). 71 (24): 3975–3978. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.71.3975. ISSN 0031-9007.
  14. Umbanhowar, Paul B.; Melo, Francisco; Swinney, Harry L. (1996). "Localized excitations in a vertically vibrated granular layer". Nature. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 382 (6594): 793–796. doi:10.1038/382793a0. ISSN 0028-0836.
  15. Melo, Francisco; Umbanhowar, Paul B.; Swinney, Harry L. (1995-11-20). "Hexagons, Kinks, and Disorder in Oscillated Granular Layers". Physical Review Letters. American Physical Society (APS). 75 (21): 3838–3841. arXiv:patt-sol/9507003. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.75.3838. ISSN 0031-9007.
  16. Rericha, Erin C.; Bizon, Chris; Shattuck, Mark D.; Swinney, Harry L. (2001-12-17). "Shocks in Supersonic Sand". Physical Review Letters. American Physical Society (APS). 88 (1): 014302. arXiv:cond-mat/0104474. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.88.014302. ISSN 0031-9007.
  17. Schröter, Matthias; Goldman, Daniel I.; Swinney, Harry L. (2005-03-30). "Stationary state volume fluctuations in a granular medium". Physical Review E. American Physical Society (APS). 71 (3): 030301(R). arXiv:cond-mat/0501264. doi:10.1103/physreve.71.030301. ISSN 1539-3755.
  18. Petrov, Valery; Ouyang, Qi; Swinney, Harry L. (1997). "Resonant pattern formation in achemical system". Nature. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 388 (6643): 655–657. doi:10.1038/41732. ISSN 0028-0836.
  19. Masel/ko, J.; Swinney, Harry L. (1986). "Complex periodic oscillations and Farey arithmetic in the Belousov–Zhabotinskii reaction". The Journal of Chemical Physics. AIP Publishing. 85 (11): 6430–6441. doi:10.1063/1.451473. ISSN 0021-9606.
  20. Sharon, Eran; Roman, Benoît; Marder, Michael; Shin, Gyu-Seung; Swinney, Harry L. (2002). "Buckling cascades in free sheets". Nature. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 419 (6907): 579–579. doi:10.1038/419579a. ISSN 0028-0836.
  21. Sharon, Eran; Marder, Michael; Swinney, Harry (2004). "Leaves, Flowers and Garbage Bags: Making Waves". American Scientist. Sigma Xi. 92 (3): 254-261. doi:10.1511/2004.47.932. ISSN 0003-0996. JSTOR 27858394.
  22. Zhang, H. P.; King, B.; Swinney, Harry L. (2008-06-20). "Resonant Generation of Internal Waves on a Model Continental Slope". Physical Review Letters. American Physical Society (APS). 100 (24): 244504. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.244504. ISSN 0031-9007.
  23. Be'er, A.; Zhang, H. P.; Florin, E.-L.; Payne, S. M.; Ben-Jacob, E.; Swinney, H. L. (2009-01-07). "Deadly competition between sibling bacterial colonies". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (2): 428–433. doi:10.1073/pnas.0811816106. ISSN 0027-8424.
  24. Be'er, A.; Ariel, G.; Kalisman, O.; Helman, Y.; Sirota-Madi, A.; et al. (2010-03-22). "Lethal protein produced in response to competition between sibling bacterial colonies". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (14): 6258–6263. doi:10.1073/pnas.1001062107. ISSN 0027-8424.
  25. Zhang, H. P.; Be'er, A.; Florin, E.- L.; Swinney, H. L. (2010-07-19). "Collective motion and density fluctuations in bacterial colonies". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (31): 13626–13630. doi:10.1073/pnas.1001651107. ISSN 0027-8424.
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