Bending Is Beautiful: ENG’s Doug Holmes studies thin, unstable structures
By Barbara Moran.
Douglas Holmes remembers when he fell in love with bendy things. He was a graduate student in physics, and he wanted to understand why a sheet of paper curves into a loop when you push the ends together. “I started looking,” he says, “and the math you needed to describe this bent piece of paper was just—I couldn’t believe how hard it was. I was like, ‘This is insane. It’s just paper. How hard can it be to predict the shape of a bent piece of paper?’”
Pretty hard, it turns out. And Holmes loved the challenge. “I was drawn to it because it was so simple to see and so hard to describe or predict,” he says. “I started seeing thin structures and instabilities everywhere, and I got really curious about understanding them.”
Holmes, a College of Engineering assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering, is now an expert in bendy, squishy, and unstable structures. He spoke to BU Today about his fascination with instability—how structures change shape under stress, for better or worse—and how soft materials may help solve some very hard problems. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.