2011 SOR Short Course

The 2011 Society of Rheology Short Course will be held October 8-9, 2011 preceding this year's SOR Meeting.  Gerry Fuller, Jan Vermant, and Andy Kraynik will talk about the Rheology of High-Interface Systems.

Short Course on Polymer Rheology & Extrusion

John Vlachopoulos will present his 66th International Intensive Short Course on Polymer Rheology and Extrusion, April 14-15, 2011, in Brussels, Belgium.  More information can be found here.

Hat tip: SOR member email

Video of the Moment: Liquid Body Armor

The folks from the Discovery Channel TV Show Time Warp use a mixture of water and cornstarch as a test of the concept of a dilatant fluid-based liquid body armor.



I like this because it's a little different than the videos of people running across pools.

Quotation of the Moment: Rock'n'Roll Fantasy

"He thought it was very funny to talk about his drummer complaining that the caviar in their dressing room was the wrong viscosity - for throwing."

Pete Townshend, in the liner notes for the album White City: A Novel

Quotation of the Moment: Pi Day

"The sea was then cast; it was made with a circular rim, and measured ten cubits across, five in height, and thirty in circumference"

I Kings 7:23

This refers to a large circular tank at the Temple of Solomon that held about 12,000 gallons of water.

Hat tip: History of Pi by Petr Beckmann

Surely You're Joking (#10): Literal Dr. Seuss

With apologies to Dr. Seuss...

Inspired by this post at Buzzfeed.

Ask Doc Rheo: Gamma Dot 2

Dear Doc Rheo:
How do you put gamma dot into Excel plots?
Anna

Dear Anna:
Microsoft Equation has to be inserted as an object.  Objects cannot be inserted into axis labels.  If I really need to have gamma dot on the chart, I'll insert directly from the rheometer software.
Respectively submitted,
Doc Rheo

Jobs Report (March '11)

A keyword search using the phrase "rheolog*" conducted on March 1 found 31 jobs on Monster.com and 32 jobs on Careerbuilder.com.  There are 4 jobs from Dow Chemical on Careerbuilder.  The polymer rheologist position mentioned here is not posted on the site.