ESP Biography

Dimensional analysis is a very powerful technique in physics which allows us to obtain answers to complicated problems by what seems like magic. For example, physicist GI Taylor used it to estimate the energy yield of the Trinity nuclear test, simply based on a photo of the explosion! We will discuss how dimensional analysis works and work through many examples from the frequency of a pendulum to the energy spectrum of turbulence. We will also talk about when it breaks down, which leads into one of the biggest developments in the physics of the 20th century: the renormalization group. We will discuss the conceptual basis of the renormalization group, which is used to study systems poised at the critical threshold between two states: for example water vapor just as it is condensing to liquid. Time permitting, we will work out a brief example.