Reinvention is the Key

I'm finally making work progress again. It's not paid but it is working out. It's like a little summer present of long overdue competence. At least one thing is on the beginning line of real writing up. Madness!

So far in the Quirky Muffin I've talked a lot of nonsense, written stories, been meditative, stared moodily out the window, talked around things that really no-one wants to know and been quite bemused on many levels. What I haven't talked about is my work, something which no-one in their right mind would find interesting anyway. I have a PhD in Applied Mathematics and spend most of my research time applying continuum fluid mechanics models in thinly applicable approximations of physical problems.

What does that mean? Well, I have two principal projects which I'll try to explain. The first is my PhD and ongoing project, which is on approximating granular material moving through and being crushed by cone-type rock crushing machines. It turns out that there are models which approximate rocky granular assemblages as continua. After a year or reimplementing slip boundary conditions and redoing the whole of my thesis calculations it's now done and only the publication is left (publications are the equivalent to money and prestige in research).

Here in Aberystwyth I've been on a little short project on the modelling of foamy fluids flowing through constrictions, and how to visualise the results you get. And there has been progress - although it had to wait until after they stopped paying me! It's amazing what you can do once no-one is expecting you to do it any more, and as a result: Double progress! In this case we were and are assessing whether foams can be approximated via elastoviscoplastic continuum models.

On top of those two principal works there's even a third project on the back-burner and collecting dust. And that's on the modelling of blood flow in elastic walled arterial vessels and building mathematical occlusions and blockages to see what happens as the vessel gets closer to total disaster. That's exciting and is hampered by only one thing: If you solve a problem over a blood vessel, and the shape of the blood vessel is part of the thing you're finding, well that's difficult. And finally I want to model plants!

So, as time wanes on and the world shivers in its boots I'll be spending this hopefully short period of unemployment on my pet projects, keeping the Job Centre happy, tutoring a little and of course keeping the Quirky Muffin rolling along. It's reinvention time as I look sadly toward leaving Aberystwyth and hope fervently to return once again one day.

Reinvention is the key.

O.