Venue: Feynman Lecture Hall
Class Timings: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:45 AM - 11:15 AM
First Meeting: 13th January 2026 (Tuesday)
Course Description:
(1) What is a pattern? Spatiotemporal patterns in biology.
(2) Brief recap of nonlinear dynamics. Phase-space analysis. Numerical tools for pattern formation. Galerkin methods. Amplitude equations. Pattern selection. Vector/Tensor order parameters. Topological defects. Group-theoretic classification of patterns.
(3) Patterns driven by free-energy gradients. Self-organized nonequilibrium patterns. Reaction-diffusion systems. Signalling patterns. Turing instabilities. Ecological patterns.
(4) Hydrodynamics of active materials. Pattern formation in active matter. Mechanochemical and geometrodynamic patterns in cell & developmental biology. Open problems.
- Teacher: Vijay Kumar Krishnamurthy