Why Are Bird Eggs Bird-Egg-Shaped? [New research from an Ig Nobellian]

Mahadevan, who won an Ig Nobel Physics Prize in 2007 for studying how/why wrinkled sheets become wrinkled, has a new study out about how/why bird eggs become bird-egg shaped. The study, by Mahadevan and several collaborators, is: “Avian Egg Shape: Form, Function, and Evolution,” Mary Caswell Stoddard, Ee Hou Yong, Derya Akkaynak, Catherine Sheard, Joseph […]

A loving, applied mathematical tribute across a generation

L. Mahadevan, who was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in physics for studying how sheets get wrinkled, wrote a loving tribute, a few months ago, to his teacher Joseph Keller [pictured here]. Keller is a two-time Ig Nobel Prize winner. The entire essay appears in SIAM News. Here are snippets: Joe Keller’s contributions to the […]

Ig Nobel winner’s turkey (and other) carving insight

The BBC celebrates a newly published study by Mahadevan [pictured here], the man who (with colleague Enrique Cerda Villablanca) was awarded the 2007 Ig Nobel Prize in physics for studying how sheets get wrinkled. The new study is: “Slicing Softly with Shear,” E. Reyssat, T. Tallinen, M. Le Merrer, and L. Mahadevan, Physical Review Letters, epub […]