This term’s MPLS seminar will be given by Neil Ashton, who will be speaking on ‘Turbulence – Finding Order in Chaos’.

It defines the shape of the cars we drive and the planes we fly on, yet it remains largely invisible. You can see it in the plume of a cigarette or your breath on a cold morning. Turbulence is all around of us, but for many the word turbulence is largely associated with a bumpy flight. This talk will introduce you to the chaotic side of nature that remains one of physics’ greatest unsolved mysteries. The famous physicist Werner Heisenberg, one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics, is reported to have said on his deathbed, “When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.”

In this talk Dr Ashton discusses how our understanding of turbulence is enabling us to understand some of the mysteries of nature. We learn how the flipper of a humpback whale inspired the look of the latest Formula 1 car, and why golf balls have dimples. By using some of the biggest supercomputers in the world, our knowledge of turbulence is bringing a new era of discovery for science and engineering.

Neil Ashton completed his Masters and PhD at the University of Manchester in 2012. After his PhD he worked at the Lotus Formula 1 team, where he was responsible for helping to develop the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methodology and optimise their use of supercomputers. He is now a Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford’s e-Research Centre where his work is focused on developing improved CFD methods for the automotive and aerospace industry.