The geometry and mechanics of chirality: from Maxwell's perversion to Feynman's obsession

Abstract: Many natural structures such as proteins, climbing vines, and seashells exhibit a well defined chirality, some are left-handed, some are right-handed, some are both. The ultimate origin of chirality is one of Nature's great mystery. However, geometry and mechanics play a fundamental role in assigning chirality and carrying this information from microscopic to macroscopic scales. In this talk, I will discuss the general problem of chirality, chirality measure, and chirality transfer, trace its history, and use examples from chemistry and biology to obtain general principles with some surprising twists.

geometric topology

Audience: researchers in the topic

GEOTOP-A seminar

Series comments: Web-seminar series on Applications of Geometry and Topology