Jack-William Barotta
@jackwilliamb.bsky.social
Brown University PhD Candidate Soft Matter | Fluid Mechanics
Squishy Science Sunday is back at the Global Physics Summit! Join us for hands-on activities about physics, including the physics of slime, sand, and cotton candy! Find us at Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Use code APSSQUISHY26 for a discount on general admission tickets!
Great to see our paper on light-intensity dependent swimming patterns in #Chlamydomonas out now in Phys Rev Lett. as an Editors' suggestion! With a nice commentary by @philipcball.bsky.social. Chlamy actively modulate the beat planes of their #cilia! journals.aps.org/prl/abstract... #protistsonsky
Researchers have proposed and tested a strategy that enables a single active filament to act as a sweeping agent. Thanks to the versatility of polymer architectures, the investigation opens up a huge molecular-design space.
Worm-Inspired Active Filaments Sweep Disorder into Order
The ability of single active filaments to cluster smaller particles could inspire new materials for building soft robots that perform biological functions.
physics.aps.org
Liquid gears and conveyor belts: We show how the interplay between phase-separation and chemotactic interactions gives rise to persistent capillary waves that drive the formation of active “gears” and “conveyor belts”. link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/...
Comment by Prof @icouzin.bsky.social that explores how collective intelligence emerges from local interactions in animal groups, and how these principles inform the design of swarm robotic systems. @natureportfolio.nature.com @natcomms.nature.com #robotics www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Collective intelligence in animals and robots - Nature Communications
This commentary explores how collective intelligence arises from local interactions in animal groups and how these principles inform the design of swarm robotic systems, addressing the challenge of ac...
nature.com
Curious about the latest advancements in soft matter physics by young researchers? Join our Students’ Virtual Conference, on November 6th from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. ET! We have a great lineup of 20 speakers covering a wide range of topics. Register via the QR code or via tinyurl.com/DSOFTConfere...
Push together a small number of mutually repelling particles and they’ll adopt configurations that depend on the specifics of the interaction and the container. Researchers have now shown that a wide range of particle types can be coaxed into the same set of configurations.
How Confined Objects Arrange Themselves
A collection of mutually repelling objects can be forced into the same arrangement, whether they are magnets, soap bubbles, or hard spheres.
physics.aps.org
Following up on my invited DFD talk last year, @jackwilliamb.bsky.social and I put together an overview of the "Propulsion and interaction of wave-propelled interfacial particles," now published at @prfluids.bsky.social ! doi.org/10.1103/353x...
We are happy to announce the DSOFT Students’ Virtual Conference, on November 6, 2025 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. ET! We have a great lineup of 20 speakers covering a diverse range of topics in soft matter physics. Register via the link or QR code to participate! tinyurl.com/DSOFTConfere...
Are you looking to craft a compelling application for a future PhD or postdoc position? DSOFT is hosting two virtual panel discussions on October 9th! To register, follow the QR codes in the images or follow the links in post below!
DSOFT invites students and recent graduates to participate in our Students’ Virtual Conference, on November 6th (10 a.m.-4 p.m. ET). The conference aims to discuss the latest advancements in soft matter physics by students. If you wish to present your work, please find details in the post below!
New preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2508.05919 We aim to explain what hyperuniformity is, for non-specialists (hopefully even high schoolers?), since this is a key idea underlying our #NSF #DMREF grant (and the last photo). And what a great excuse to visit the NC State Insect Collection, to take photo A!
Don't miss our catch up with authors of Soft Matter Tutorial Review 'Hacktive matter: data-driven discovery through hackathon-based cross-disciplinary coding' Visit our LinkedIn post to find out more: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... Read the review: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...
Hacktive matter: data-driven discovery through hackathon-based cross-disciplinary coding
The past decade has seen unprecedented growth in active matter and autonomous biomaterials research, yielding diverse classes of materials capable of flowing, contracting, bundling, de-mixing, and coa...
pubs.rsc.org
New review in PRX Life, where we propose a tangibility scale for the physics of social interactions, and highlight a few tangible examples - from dead fish “swimming” to efficient schooling, warm penguin huddles, and dry ant rafts. Written with the brilliant Chantal Nguyen 🐟🐧🐜 tinyurl.com/naet5tdh
🎨🔬 In our lab, science meets art! From vibrant colors to stunning shapes, our experiments are as beautiful as they are fascinating. Because science is art! ✨ Check out our gallery of images captured by the team: www.softbiocoll.com #SciArt #SoftMatter #Microscopy #SyntheticCells #ActiveMatter
Postdoctoral researcher @robert-hunt.bsky.social of @fluiddanamics.bsky.social, in collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill, has found surprising new insights into how particles sink in stratified fluids like oceans, where the density of the fluid changes with depth. www.brown.edu/news/2025-06...
New research uncovers surprising physics of ‘marine snow’
Engineering scholars at Brown University uncovered unexpected dynamics in how organic particulates sink in the ocean, a process that plays a key role in marine nutrient cycling.
brown.edu
Researchers have introduced a comprehensive model that predicts the behavior of a bowling bowl. The goal: to identify the optimal launch position and trajectory for scoring a strike, the feat of toppling all 10 pins at once.
Bowling Simulations Inform Strike Strategy
A physics-based model that captures the complex dynamics of tenpin bowling could help players to increase their chances of scoring a strike.
physics.aps.org
Latest #harrislab work now live at PRE @apsphysics.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1103/Phys... Here we study the wave-mediated synchronization of two capillary spinners. Work led by @jackwilliamb.bsky.social.
Virtual reality rewrites the rules of the swarm. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... We find that classical models of collective behavior fail to account for collective motion. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The behavioral mechanisms governing collective motion in swarming locusts
Collective motion, which is ubiquitous in nature, has traditionally been explained by “self-propelled particle” models from theoretical physics. Here we show, through field, lab, and virtual reality e...
science.org
Some of you might enjoy my lectures on "asymptotics and perturbation methods". youtube.com/playlist?lis... These are ingenious methods for approximating the solutions to integrals and differential equations by exploiting the presence of a small or large parameter in the problem.
Asymptotics and perturbation methods - Prof. Steven Strogatz - YouTube
This is the playlist for an applied math course on asymptotics and perturbation methods, offered by Prof. Steven Strogatz at Cornell University in Spring 202...
youtube.com
🚨Hyped to share our new article in @natureportfolio.bsky.social! We show that crocodile head scales develop from compressive folding that arises from constrained skin growth 🐊🔬 Really proud of this one - it's cool 😎 Please read & share! 🧪 @genevunige.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Self-organized patterning of crocodile head scales by compressive folding - Nature
Crocodile head scales self-organize through purely mechanical compressive skin folding rather than a patterning process controlled by gene interactions.
nature.com
