Nicholas J. Giordano

Nicholas J. Giordano Profile Picture

Professor of Physics and Assistant Dean of Science
Ph.D., Physics, Yale University, 1977

Contact Info:

giordano@purdue.edu
765-494-6418

Training Group(s):
Integrative Neuroscience

PULSe Contributor - not currently hosting students for laboratory rotations or recruiting students in the laboratory

Current Research Interests:

1)The physics of nanostructures and mesoscopic systems

 My group studies the properties of very small metallic systems, including such phenomena as the Kondo effect in one and two dimensions, the behavior of domain walls in very narrow ferromagnetic wires, and fluid flow in extremely small structures. Students who have recently been involved in this work include Todd Jacobs, Baris Cetin, Jiangtao Cheng, and Jacob Millspaw. More details along with some of our recent papers are given on our mesoscopic page.

  2) Musical acoustics and the physics of the piano

 We are studying why the piano sounds like a piano. We are developing a physical model of the piano - this model will use Newton's laws to calculate the motion of all of the pieces of a piano along with the sound pressure which is produced. This work also involves experimental studies of piano hammers, strings, and soundboards. This work has been done by Andy Korty, James Winans, Stu Dietz, John Millis, James Roberts, and Laura Rueff. More details of this work, including some of our recent publications are given at our piano www pages.

  3) Computational neuroscience

 We are starting several projects in the area of computational neuroscience. This work has to do with the nervous system, and how it does various sorts of "computations". We are interested in the detailed physics, biophysics, and neuroscience of how signals are generated and propagate in the brain, and in how the brain processes these signals. These projects are described in more detail on our neuroscience page, where our publications in this area can be found. This work has been done by Jasper Wang and Zhouhan Liang.

  4) Computational physics

 I have a long standing interest in doing and teaching computational physics. This work includes the musical acoustics described above, along with my book Computational Physics (Prentice-Hall) which was developed when I taught a course on this topic.

  5) Guitar acoustics

 We have just begun some modeling studies of the guitar. Some information on this work and some calculated guitar tones can be found here.

 

 

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