• Dr
    • Klaus Mecke
    • Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
    • Theoretical Physics

Shape Matters: Geometry and Physics of Random Spatial Patterns

Spatially structured matter such as foams, gels or biomaterials are of increasing technological importance due to their shape-dependent material properties. But the shape of disordered structures is a remarkably incoherent concept and cannot be captured by correlation functions alone. Integral geometry furnishes a suitable family of morphological descriptors, so-called tensorial Minkowski functionals, which are related to curvature integrals and do not only characterize shape but also anisotropy and even topology of disordered structures. These measures can be used to derive structure-property relations for complex materials and also to characterize the large-scale patterns of the universe.

About

Klaus Mecke, since 2004 full professor for Theoretical Physics at the Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, studied philosophy and physics and received his PhD at the LMU Munich in 1993 with a thesis on integral geometry in physics. After research stays in Austin and Boston, he worked in Wuppertal and at the MPI Stuttgart on liquids on the molecular scale and the geometric characterization of spatially complex materials. Recently, he developed a theory of quantum spacetime based on finite projective geometry of event processes. An important aspect of his research at the Erlangen Center for Literature and the Sciences (ELINAS) are the manifold exchange modes between physics and literature. Here, his research goal is a narratology of physics as well as its process-ontological foundation.