Harmonization Workshop: How to understand Stiffness
On October 13th, Paul Steinmann led an engaging and insightful harmonization workshop on understanding stiffness and viscosity. He kicked things off by breaking down the basic concepts of mechanics — force, strain, and stress — through simple, hands-on demonstrations, such as stretching rubber bands and using spring-operated weighing scales. These everyday examples made the ideas shine before he connected them to the underlying mathematical equations and shared some fascinating stories about the scientists behind these discoveries. The session then delved into the fundamentals of rheological modeling, focusing on storage and loss moduli and how they relate to classic material models, such as the Kelvin-Voigt and Maxwell models. And to keep spirits (and sugar levels) high, there was even a demonstration of cutting mechanics using a gummy-bear brain.
Yashasvi Verma, X01