The growth of rose petals exploits a geometric trick previously unobserved in nature, physicists have found. Using theoretical analysis, computer simulations and experiments with rubbery plastic sheets, they established that as the petals curl outwards, mechanical feedback regulates their growth, leading to the formation of rolled edges and pointed corners at their tips. The findings, described in Science on 1 May1, could one day have applications in engineering and architecture. 'You might learn new principles and then implement them in manmade structures,' says Eran Sharon, an experimental physicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Geometric patterns are known to affect developing organisms. But in all previously observed cases, the principles had to do with the 'intrinsic' geometry of surfaces. Intrinsic features are those related to the distances between points on the surface, as would be measured by an ant walking on it. But a surface of a given intrinsic geometry can have multiple ways of existing in 3D ' or 'extrinsic' geometries. For example, a sheet of paper can be laid flat or curled up into a cylinder; and an ant walking on it would not notice any changes in the distances it covers, even though points on the sheet could be closer to or farther from each other in 3D space....
Are quantum computers worth the billions that are being invested in them' The answer is probably many years away. However, the machines could prove to be particularly suited to solving problems in mathematics ' especially in topology, the branch of maths that studies shapes. In a preprint posted on arXiv in March1, researchers at Quantinuum, a company headquartered in Cambridge, UK, report using their quantum machine H2-2 to distinguish between different types of knot on the basis of topological properties, and show that the method could be faster than those that run on ordinary, or 'classical', computers. Quantinuum chief product officer Ilyas Khan says that Helios, a quantum computer that the company expects to release later this year, could get much closer to beating classical supercomputers at analysing fiendishly complicated knots. Although other groups have already made similar claims of 'quantum advantage', typically for ad hoc calculations that have no practical use, classical algorithms tend to catch up eventually. But theoretical results2,3 suggest that for some topology problems, quantum algorithms could be faster than any possible classical counterpart. This is owing to mysterious connections between topology and quantum physics. 'That these things are related is mind-blowing, I think,' says Konstantinos Meichanetzidis, a Quantinuum researcher who led the work behind the preprint....
Baddoo joined the MIT Department of Mathematics in January 2021. Prior to this, he was an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow at Imperial College London. He studied mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford and received his PhD from Cambridge University. An accomplished applied mathematician, Baddoo had broad research interests and activities spanning complex function theory, fluid dynamics, and machine learning and data-driven methods. His book, 'Analytic Solutions for Flows Through Cascades' (Springer, 2020) received praise for its 'exceptionally clear presentation with beautiful figures.' 'Peter was an outstanding, self-propelling researcher, a master of complex function theory with a burgeoning interest in machine learning, and had several collaborations within the U.S. and farther afield. He had an exceptionally promising future in academia. He was a deeply respected and valued member of my research group and the broader applied math community. He will be sorely missed,' says Professor John Bush, his faculty mentor....
