Rigid Membranes And How Folded Structures Form
Sunday, November 7, 2010 - 00:25
in Physics & Chemistry
Our brain, wrinkles on our faces and even mountain chains have one thing in common - all those things, though very different, result from the same process, namely the compression of a 'rigid membrane'. Take a thin sheet of a solid material and try to compress it in such a way that it remains flat. You won't succeed, since the sheet bends systematically along its entire length. This is known as buckling. Now stick the same sheet onto a soft, thick substrate and compress it again in the same way: this time, it forms an extremely regular pattern of small wrinkles characterized by a particular distance between them, called the period. read more
