The emergence of patterns is one of the world’s most durable mysteries. Some patterns (clouds, snowflakes) form in space, while others (the ebb and flow of tides, seasonal wet and dry spells) form in time. Do patterns such as the spirals in a frog egg, a fibrillating heart, and an ocean eddy have anything in common? The sizes are vastly different and the biology of a frog egg is far more complicated than the physics of a fluid. Yet the patterns formed in such systems, differing widely in scale and in the underlying mechanisms, can in some cases be understood from a common approach.
Harry Swinney教授，先后于罗德学院，约翰霍普金斯大学获得理学学士学位及物理博士学位，现任得克萨斯大学物理系Sid Richardson Regents Foundation讲席教授，并领导该校的非线性动力学中心（Center for Nonlinear Dynamics）工作，该中心由Swinney教授在1985年创建，是非线性动力学领域最知名的学术中心之一。Swinney教授以非线性动力学为主线，在物理、化学和生物等多个领域作出了杰出贡献。他在1991年当选美国国家文理研究院院士，1992年当选美国国家科学院院士，并且分别于1995年和2007年获得美国物理学会流体力学奖和工业和应用数学学会Moser奖。