SIU Honors Program lecture, symposium to examine gyroids

September 05, 2024

by Pete Rosenbery

CARBONDALE, Ill. - A free, public lecture and symposium that examines the groundbreaking work of the late Alan Schoen, a Southern Illinois University Carbondale professor who discovered the gyroid while working for NASA as a scientist, is set for 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6.

The hybrid event in Morris Library's third-floor rotunda, will include a virtual presentation by Gerd Schröder-Turk, a professor of mathematics, statistics, chemistry and physics at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia. The lecture will be available via Zoom; registration is available.

Presented by the University Honors Program, the symposium will also feature presentations by Lingguo Bu, a professor in SIU Carbondale's early childhood program; Duston Wetzel, a doctoral student in applied physics, and Paul Gailiunas, a retired high school teacher and math enthusiast from Newcastle, England. A reception will follow.

Schröder-Turk will present the fall 2024 Nancy and Michael Glassman Distinguished Lecture, "Alan Schoen and the Gyroid Surface: Adventures in geometry that gave materials sciences a new twist," which looks at Schoen's fascination with mathematical geometry and the functional uses of this in nature.

A gyroid is an infinitely connected periodic minimal surface with no straight lines, and Schoen's discovery led the way to finding these structures throughout nature, including the shimmering colors of butterfly wings and soap bubbles. A minimal surface has the smallest area possible within a given boundary. The gyroid is one of the most popular application research subjects among all scientific fields including medicine.

Schoen, a physicist, mathematician and computer scientist who drew by hand some of his earliest observations of geometric patterns in nature, died in July 2023. He taught at SIU Carbondale from 1973 to 1996. "Yellow Moon Gyroid" made by algorithmic artist Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, honoring Schoen's 1968 discovery, is in the library's third floor rotunda.

Jyotsna Kapur, honors program director, said she hopes the talk, which is also the inaugural Alan Schoen Memorial Lecture, will become a tradition "that celebrates Alan's legacy and inspires us to retain our sense of wonder at the world, the persistence and discipline to closely observe it, and the burning desire to share in whatever way it works for us - drawing, writing, photographing, filming - these discoveries with others in order to make for a better world."

"We admire Alan for his experiments in learning that led to him to cross disciplinary boundaries and left such a rich impact," she said. "This is also the SIU Honors Program ethos - Learn. Lead. Serve. Find your own intellectual path through a comprehensive research university, work collaboratively and care to make a positive difference to your community."

The Michael and Nancy Glassman Lecture Series was established by its namesakes, who met while they were students at SIU Carbondale and have continued their support of the university.

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