Professor Sauro Succi: The Boltzmann way to the computational design of soft mesoscale materials AbstractLudwig Boltzmann is the founding father of non-equilibrium statistical physics and a towering figure of all-time science, his eponymous equation providing the first quantitative bridge between the microscopic world of atoms and the macroscopic world of our daily life. Despite its paramount conceptual importance, until a few decades ago, the Boltzmann equation was almost exclusively used for the study of rarefied gas dynamics. The situation has taken a dramatic upturn in the early 90's with the discovery of suitably lattice-discretized versions of the Boltzmann equation, nowadays known as Lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE), which provide an extremely elegant and computationally efficient framework for the computer simulation of a broad class of complex owing systems far from equilibrium.In this lecture we shall illustrate the power of LBE with specific emphasis on complex states of soft flowing matter, such as foams, emulsions, multi-gels, that play a vital role in a broad variety of natural and industrial processes. We shall also present selected examples of the synergistic combination of large-scale LB simulations and machine-learning algorithms in unravelling the complex dynamics of soft flowing droplets in microfluids and their implications for the design of novel soft mesoscale materials.BiographyProf Sauro Succi holds a degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Bologna and a PhD in physics from the Swiss Polytechnic in Lausanne. He currently serves as a Senior Research Executive and Principal Investigator at the Center for Life Nano-Neuro Sciences at la Sapienza of the Italian Institute of Technology and a Research Associate and Visiting Faculty at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences since 2000. He has been a Research Director at the Institute for Applied Computing of the Italian National Research Council (1995-2018), a senior research staff at the IBM European Center for Scientific and Engineering Computing (1986-1995) and an Euratom research fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasmaphysics in Garching (1981-82). Mar 28 2025 13.00 - 14.00 Professor Sauro Succi: The Boltzmann way to the computational design of soft mesoscale materials Edinburgh Fluid Dynamics Group welcomes Professor Sauro Succi in series of colloquia co-funded by the Schools of Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics and Astronomy. JCMB Lecture Theatre A, King's Buildings This article was published on Wednesday 2 September 2026
Professor Sauro Succi: The Boltzmann way to the computational design of soft mesoscale materials AbstractLudwig Boltzmann is the founding father of non-equilibrium statistical physics and a towering figure of all-time science, his eponymous equation providing the first quantitative bridge between the microscopic world of atoms and the macroscopic world of our daily life. Despite its paramount conceptual importance, until a few decades ago, the Boltzmann equation was almost exclusively used for the study of rarefied gas dynamics. The situation has taken a dramatic upturn in the early 90's with the discovery of suitably lattice-discretized versions of the Boltzmann equation, nowadays known as Lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE), which provide an extremely elegant and computationally efficient framework for the computer simulation of a broad class of complex owing systems far from equilibrium.In this lecture we shall illustrate the power of LBE with specific emphasis on complex states of soft flowing matter, such as foams, emulsions, multi-gels, that play a vital role in a broad variety of natural and industrial processes. We shall also present selected examples of the synergistic combination of large-scale LB simulations and machine-learning algorithms in unravelling the complex dynamics of soft flowing droplets in microfluids and their implications for the design of novel soft mesoscale materials.BiographyProf Sauro Succi holds a degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Bologna and a PhD in physics from the Swiss Polytechnic in Lausanne. He currently serves as a Senior Research Executive and Principal Investigator at the Center for Life Nano-Neuro Sciences at la Sapienza of the Italian Institute of Technology and a Research Associate and Visiting Faculty at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences since 2000. He has been a Research Director at the Institute for Applied Computing of the Italian National Research Council (1995-2018), a senior research staff at the IBM European Center for Scientific and Engineering Computing (1986-1995) and an Euratom research fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasmaphysics in Garching (1981-82). Mar 28 2025 13.00 - 14.00 Professor Sauro Succi: The Boltzmann way to the computational design of soft mesoscale materials Edinburgh Fluid Dynamics Group welcomes Professor Sauro Succi in series of colloquia co-funded by the Schools of Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics and Astronomy. JCMB Lecture Theatre A, King's Buildings This article was published on Wednesday 2 September 2026
Mar 28 2025 13.00 - 14.00 Professor Sauro Succi: The Boltzmann way to the computational design of soft mesoscale materials Edinburgh Fluid Dynamics Group welcomes Professor Sauro Succi in series of colloquia co-funded by the Schools of Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics and Astronomy.
