This is a past event
Prof. M. Okrouhlik, The Institute of Thermomechanics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
The author ponders about things that necessarily come into one’s mind when the results obtained by theoretical, numerical and experimental approaches in continuum mechanics are correlated and compared with a pious wish to ascertain which of them are closer to 'reality'. And suddenly questions arise.
How the ancient philosophers viewed the truth? How is truth related to the validity of theoretical, numerical and experimental models we are inventing and employing? What is the role of threshold in physics, computational mechanics and in experiment?
How the basic quantities, as time, force, stress, etc. were defined in the past and how are they defined now? Do we properly understand them? Why is the stress tensor symmetric?
What is the role of singularity in mathematics and in physics?
The doubts stemming from uneasy answers to above pertinent questions are complemented by discussing numerous examples from theoretical, numerical and experimental results obtained by solving high speed phenomena tasks in continuum mechanics.
The author wishes to persuade the audience that the role of doubts in our understanding of Mother Nature (at least in mechanic) is far from being negative.
- Speaker
- Professor M. Okrouhlik
- Hosted by
- CADR
- Venue
- St Marys 105