"HOW THINGS BREAK"
Every child learns early that brittle objects break easily.
Yet on a
bit of reflection the process should seem mysterious.
We apply weak
forces over large length scales to an object, and spontaneously
the
object uses that energy to snap atomic bonds. This talk
will begin by
discussing how that occurs, the engineering science that
has grown up
to explain it, and the successes and limitations of the
engineering
approach. The talk will then shift to a discussion of
recent
experiments, the observation of a dynamic instability
in fracture, and
the solution of the problem of ideal brittle fracture.