School of MechanicalEngineering Seminar

Monday, May 23, 2022 at 14:00
ZOOM SEMINAR

The Weirdest Phenomena in Sciences

Prof. Peter Vadasz,

Professor of Mechanical Engineering,

Northern Arizona University

            Some of the weirdest phenomena in sciences are rigorously introduced and discussed. They include topics such as “invisible objects” related to von-Karman vortices, “premonition" related to Larmor radiation, “the big brother" related to quantum mechanics, “telekinesis" related to quantum entanglement, “zombies" linked to Scrödinger’s cat. The von-Karman vortices linked to a system subject to rotation is demonstrated theoretically to produce (invisible) Taylor-Proudman columns. The latter is demonstrated to occur in nature in atmospheric flows captured by satellite. Larmor radiation is demonstrated to produce super-Newtonian effects such that a body accelerates prior to the application of the force, a type of "premonition". Quantum mechanical effects like quantum entanglement lead to apparent superluminal information transfer. 

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My Biographical Details follow (if they are too long please feel free to cut any parts that are less relevant):

Dr. Peter Vadasz, Professor

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northern Arizona University

Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

Abstracted Biography

(updated March 2022)

PETER VADASZ obtained his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering, in 1979 and 1983, respectively, from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. He completed the Doctor of Science degree in 1988, also from the Technion.

From 1979 till 1991 he occupied a variety of positions in industry, such as Project Manager, and Head of Energy Storage Section in the R&D Division of the Israel Eklectric Corp.

From 1991 till 2002 he was affiliated with the Faculty of Engineering at University of Durban-Westville, South Africa being Professor and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering between 1992 and 1998.

From 2002 till present Dr. Vadasz is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, being Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering between 2002 and 2008.

A past board member of the Royal Society of London - Proceedings A from 2013 till 2020, past Associate Editor of the Journal of Heat Transfer for two terms, a member of the Editoral Advisory Board of the Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology, and of the journal Physics, a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), he was also a Fellow of The South African Institution of Mechanical Engineering, and Fellow Member of the Southern African Institute of Energy.

In August 2000 he received the National Research Foundation (NRF) “A” rating evaluation, a privilege bestowed only with scientists that are established “world leaders, for the quality and impact of their recent research outputs”. This is the first ever and the only NRF (previously FRD) “A” rated scientist at University of Durban-Westville. There were 48 “A” rated scientists in South Africa at that time.

In February 2001 the Royal Society of London published a paper by Straughan, B. ( Proc. Royal Society A, Vol.457, pp.87-93, 2001 ) that names a new dimensionless group, the Vadasz Number (Va). The scientific significance and impact of this dimensionless group in oscillatory convection in porous media was first introduced by Prof. Vadasz in his paper: Vadasz, P., J. Fluid Mechanics 376, pp.351-375,1998, and subsequently in: Vadasz, P., Transport in Porous Media 41(2), pp.211-239,2000. Subsequently the Vadasz number () was adopted by S. Lombardo & G. Mulone in Continuum Mech. Thermodyn. (14, 527-540, 2002), S. Govender in Transport in Porous Media (51, 315-326, 2003), B. Straughan in Proc. Royal Society of London A (460, 2913-2927, 2004), Mulone and Straughan in ZAMM (86, 507-520, 2006), S. Govender in Transport in Porous Media (63, 489-502, 2006) and in J. Porous Media (9 (6), 523-539, 2006), L.J. Sheu in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals (30 (3), 672-689, 2006), B.S. Bhadauria in Transport in Porous Media, (70 (2), 191-211, 2007), Vanishree & Siddheshwar in Transport in Porous Media (81, 73-87, 2010) and many others. 

(See also Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dimensionless_quantities    for a long list of dimensionless numbers, including Vadasz number.

Prof. Vadasz published 174 scientific journal articles, book chapters and conference scientific papers, two editorial books, and one authored book, the latter published by Springer.

 Peter Vadasz’s professional topics of interest are: Heat and Mass Transfer and Fluid Dynamics, Transport Phenomena in Porous Media, Investigation of Non-Linear Effects, Stability, Bifurcation and Routes to Chaos, Bio-Engineering, Energy Conversion and Storage, Engineering Economics, Cost Analysis and Optimization.

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