2008 Woodie Awards
Profile: Dr. Sergey Buldyrev
Eliyahu Rosen
Issue date: 12/6/04 Section: Features
This year, the physics department received a tremendous boost with the recent appointment of Professor Sergey Buldyrev, PhD, who brings his world-famous expertise in computational physics to Yeshiva College.
Hailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, Dr. Buldyrev has most recently studied at Boston University, where he did research under the auspices of Professor H. Eugene Stanley, one of the "fathers of the critical point phenomenon," as Dr. Buldyrev says. He has also been a visiting professor for the physics department of the University of Rome.
While serving as an assistant research professor at M.I.T., Dr. Stanley published a book on the critical point phenomenon, which is what happens when water is placed under extremely high heat pressure and the liquid water begins to behave like gas, an unusual phenomenon that wasn't even understood until the late 60's. The book was subsequently translated into more that 20 languages, including Russian. "I read his book while at St. Petersburg," said Buldyrev, "and I was fascinated." At that time, Buldyrev was a student in St. Petersburg, but when he later immigrated to the United States in 1989, he went straight to Professor Stanley to ask if he could work with him. He was hired, and they worked together for fourteen years.
Complex computer simulation is a key tool in the type of research that Dr. Buldyrev performs. He wrote the scientific coding for a program that allows its user to control every aspect of the simulation, including pressure and temperature, among other variables. The program simulates what actually happens in nature, at the same time recording various graphs.
The beauty of the program is that it isn't a movie or computer controlled simulation. Rather, its complex scientific coding allows for an actual reproduction of the actions of nature with results that are pre-recorded; all the atoms on the screen are acting with their own "free will," bumping, colliding, and joining with each other.
Hailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, Dr. Buldyrev has most recently studied at Boston University, where he did research under the auspices of Professor H. Eugene Stanley, one of the "fathers of the critical point phenomenon," as Dr. Buldyrev says. He has also been a visiting professor for the physics department of the University of Rome.
While serving as an assistant research professor at M.I.T., Dr. Stanley published a book on the critical point phenomenon, which is what happens when water is placed under extremely high heat pressure and the liquid water begins to behave like gas, an unusual phenomenon that wasn't even understood until the late 60's. The book was subsequently translated into more that 20 languages, including Russian. "I read his book while at St. Petersburg," said Buldyrev, "and I was fascinated." At that time, Buldyrev was a student in St. Petersburg, but when he later immigrated to the United States in 1989, he went straight to Professor Stanley to ask if he could work with him. He was hired, and they worked together for fourteen years.
Complex computer simulation is a key tool in the type of research that Dr. Buldyrev performs. He wrote the scientific coding for a program that allows its user to control every aspect of the simulation, including pressure and temperature, among other variables. The program simulates what actually happens in nature, at the same time recording various graphs.
The beauty of the program is that it isn't a movie or computer controlled simulation. Rather, its complex scientific coding allows for an actual reproduction of the actions of nature with results that are pre-recorded; all the atoms on the screen are acting with their own "free will," bumping, colliding, and joining with each other.