Summary: It’s easy to take a lot for granted. Scientists do this when they study stress, the force per unit area on an object. Scientists handle stress mathematically by assuming it to have symmetry. That means the components of stress are identical if you transform the stressed object with something like a turn or a flip. Supercomputer simulations show that at the atomic level, material stress doesn’t behave symmetrically. That’s according to a study published September of 2018 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A. The findings could help scientists come up with new materials such as glass or metal that doesn’t ice up. On the podcast to talk more about the stress study is Liming Xiong, Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Iowa State University. Dr. Xiong used supercomputer allocations on XSEDE, the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, funded by the National Science Foundation. That gave Xiong access to the Comet system at the San Diego Supercomputer Center; and Jetstream, a cloud environment supported by Indiana University, the University of Arizona, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center. Podcast host Jorge Salazar interviewed Liming Xiong. Story: https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/-/a-new-way-to-see-stress-using-supercomputers Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/
