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Bristol Theory group PhD thesis on Applied Topology published in Springer series

11 January 2017

Dr Alexander Taylor's PhD thesis, 'Analysis of Quantised Vortex Tangle' has been published by Springer as part of their Springer Theses series.  Described as 'the best of the best', Springer theses represent the most significant new work from top-ranking international research institutions.  The publication follows several Bristol Physics theses in the same series.
 
In his thesis, Alexander developed numerical techniques for tracking and characterising convoluted nodal lines in three-dimensional space, analysing their geometry on the small scale, as well as their global fractality and topological complexity - including knotting - on the large scale. The key results of the thesis were published in summer 2016 in Nature Communications.  The published thesis includes a foreword by Professor Mark Dennis as Alexander's supervisor.
 
Having successfully graduated in 2015, Dr Taylor is now working as a postdoctoral researcher on the Leverhulme Trust Project Grant 'SPOCK: Scientific Properties of Complex Knots'. His expertise in using computers to identify knots is leading to new understanding of how knots appear in dense tangles of filamentary data, including in biomolecules and vortices in superfluids.
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