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Computational science

Unlocking dislocation secrets

Nature volume 391, pages 637–638 (1998)Cite this article

In the paper by Bulatov et al. on page 669 of this issue1, five authors have joined forces across disciplines to study how collaboration of atoms results in change on large scales. They investigate the appearance of a barrier to plastic flow in a crystal, and then the destruction of the barrier. The larger significance of the work lies in providing a case study where complicated phenomena at the atomic scale are transformed into quantitative accounts of the whirlpools and vortices that allow metals to deform.

Vortices in fluids and gases are obvious features of everyday life, appearing when water drains from a sink, or during storms as tornadoes. The vortex has a permanent character rooted in geometry. It consists of a tight core with fluid swirling continuously about it; the core can move and become distorted, but it cannot easily be created or destroyed. J. J. Thomson, who studied the motion of vortex rings before discovering the electron, held the view that elementary particles were simply eddies of an underlying liquid ether, “matter being those portions of the liquid in which there is vortex motion”2. This idea has not survived in the simple fashion Thomson had in mind. But abstract generalizations of the vortex have expanded to serve many fields of science, where they provide a compact geometrical discription of complicated motions and configurations.

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Figure 1: Metal structure and dislocations.
Figure 2: Vortices in fluids and solids.

References

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  1. Michael Marder is in the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics and the Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, 78712, Texas, USA

    Michael Marder

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  1. Michael Marder
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Marder, M. Unlocking dislocation secrets. Nature 391, 637–638 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/35500

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