Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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Swimming microorganisms navigate an environment dominated by viscous drag and Brownian motion. Many macroscopic swimming strategies do not apply in the microscopic world. I will describe a geometrical framework for the self-propulsion of a microorganism through a viscous fluid. The model which also applies to many under-actuated control systems (falling cats for example) was first introduced by physicists A. Shapere and F. Wilczek. I will use this model to give quantitative and qualitative descriptions of some strategies for self-propulsion found in nature.