Peter Lu

Peter James Lu ( Chinese  陸述義 , Pinyin Lù Shùyì ; * 1978 in Cleveland , Ohio , USA ) is an American-Canadian physicist at Harvard University , a well-known elite institute in Cambridge (Massachusetts) .

Lu's greatest discovery to date is the evidence of Penrose patterns in tile form on numerous buildings in the Islamic world. Due to its political and scientific relevance, this discovery met with great media interest worldwide (including front pages of the New York Times and The Times). The elaborations led to the quasi-anticipation of the mathematical findings of the Penrose tiling from 1974 through the Girih tiles , as they have long been attached to numerous magnificent buildings in the Islamic world, but have not yet been recognized as such by modern research.

Act

Already in his early years, Lu caused a sensation with interdisciplinary hobby projects: In the area of biodiversity , he was able to prove that there were no assumed prehistoric epochs with massive extinctions of species, but that the claims are based on an insufficient number of fossils for these epochs.

This is supplemented by historical discoveries in pre-Christian times. For example, Lu was able to prove that mankind was already 4000 years BC. He used diamond-containing polishing agents far earlier than previously thought to smooth metal-oxide , ritual axes made of corundum (mostly in the form of sapphire and ruby ) by applying a medium set of possible processes and comparing them microscopically with the existing finds has been. The results of this collaboration with Princeton scientist Nan Yao can be found in the book Handbook of Microscopy for Nanotechnology and the publication Earliest Use of Corundum and Diamond in Prehistoric China . to find. He also succeeded in proving the use of high-quality engraving machines for jewelry processing in China around 2500 years ago. For a likely construction principle of such a machine, a schematic model was created, which was described in the Journal Science and the Encyclopædia Britannica Book of the Year 2005.

Lu grew up in Philadelphia and won seven gold medals at the National Science Olympiad, including four in the rocks, minerals and fossils category. He received his bachelor's degree with summa cum laude in physics from Princeton University in 2000 . In his bachelor thesis with Paul Steinhardt he found diffraction patterns in a naturally occurring quasicrystal . This work was published in Physical Review Letters .

Lu received his doctorate in 2008 from Harvard with David Weitz as doctoral supervisor. In his work he investigated phase separation at the critical point using colloidal particles. In order to gain knowledge for future processes for qualitatively special material separation, he has worked with astronauts on board the international space station ISS to investigate evaporation processes under weightlessness and the patterns that occur. The work was complemented by the successful reproduction of the observations using computer simulation. The laboratory work led to new techniques for observing and modeling colloidal behavior, and the results have been published in the renowned journal Nature .

As a doctoral student, Lu held 60 guest lectures at institutes around the world and was the youngest board member in the National Science Olympiad Committee.

Publications (excerpt)

• Peter J. Lu, E. Zaccarelli, F. Ciulla, A. Schofield, F. Sciortino, D. Weitz: Gelation of particles with short-range attraction. In: Nature. 453, 2008, pp. 499-503.
• Peter J. Lu: Early Precision Compound Machine from Ancient China. In: Science. 304, 2004, p. 1638.
• Peter J. Lu, PJ Steinhardt: Decagonal and Quasi-crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture. In: Science. 315, 2007, pp. 1106-1110.
• L. Bindi, P. Steinhardt, Peter J. Lu: Natural Quaicrystals. In: Science. 324, 2009, pp. 1306-1309.

Web links

• Homepage of Peter Lu

Individual evidence

1. ↑ B. Schwentker: Mathematics: Puzzle of Infinity. In: The time. 09/2007 ( zeit.de ).
2. ^ H. Dambeck: Mosque builders were 500 years ahead of Western mathematicians. In: Der Spiegel. 02/2007 ( spiegel.de ).
3. ↑ Islamic Art: Tiles astonish mathematicians. In: Focus 02/2007. February 22, 2007, accessed June 16, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Geometric beauties. In: Berliner Zeitung . February 23, 2007, accessed June 16, 2015 . 
5. ↑ M. Stang: Quasicrystals in Ornament - Astounding Geometric Patterns from the Orient. Research News - Deutschlandfunk 02/2007.
6. ↑ WB Denny: Applied Mathematics: The Secret of the Girih. In: Spectrum Direct. 02/2007 ( Wissenschaft-online.de ).
7. ↑ F. Bergamin: The secret of the Islamic tile mosaics. In: Wissenschaft.de. February 23, 2007, accessed September 8, 2019 . 
8. ^ J. Wilford: In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math. In: New York Times. 2, 2007 (front page, nytimes.com ).
9. ↑ M. Henderson: Science Amazing Maths of the Mosaic Makers. In: The Times. 2, 2007 (front page, timesonline.co.uk ).
10. ↑ Peter J. Lu, Paul J. Steinhardt: Decagonal and Quasi-Crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture . In: Science . tape 315 , no. 5815 , February 23, 2007, p. 1106-1110 , doi : 10.1126 / science.1135491 , PMID 17322056 .
11. ↑ Peter J. Lu, Motohiro Yogo, Charles Marshall: Phanerozoic marine biodiversity dynamics in light of the incompleteness of the fossil record . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . tape 103 , no. 8 , 2006, p. 2736-2739 , doi : 10.1073 / pnas.0511083103 , PMID 16477008 .
12. ↑ Science online Materials science: Noble old grinder
13. ↑ BBC news Chinese made first use of diamond.
14. ↑ Confocal Scanning Optical Microscopy and Nanotechnology. In: N. Yao, ZL Wang (Eds.): Handbook of Microscopy for Nanotechnology. Kluwer, New York 2005, pp. 3-24 and Tsinghua University Press, Beijing 2006, pp. 1-23.
15. ^ Peter J. Lu: the Earliest use of Corundum and Diamond, in Prehistoric China . In: Archaeometry . tape 47 , no. 1 , 2005, p. 1–12 , doi : 10.1111 / j.1475-4754.2005.00184.x ( onlinelibrary.wiley.com [PDF]).
16. ^ Peter J. Lu: Early Precision Compound Machine from Ancient China . In: Science . 304, 2004, p. 1638. doi : 10.1126 / science.1096588 .
17. ↑ Peter J. Lu, Kenneth Deffeyes, Paul J. Steinhardt, Nan Yao: Identifying and Indexing Icosahedral Quasicrystals from Powder Diffraction Patterns . In: Physical Review Letters . tape 87 , no. 27 , December 13, 2001, pp. 275507 , doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevLett.87.275507 ( aps.org [PDF]).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
18. ↑ Peter J. Lu, PA Sims, et al .: Target-locking Acquisition with Real-time Confocal (TARC) Microscopy . In: Optics Express . 15, 2007, p. 8702. doi : 10.1364 / OE.15.008702 .
19. ^ Peter J. Lu, E. Zaccarelli, F. Ciulla, A. Schofield, F. Sciortino & D. Weitz: Gelation of particles with short-range attraction . In: Nature . 453, 2008, pp. 499-503. doi : 10.1038 / nature06931 .