The Curious Studies of David Hu

[BillTre]

David Hu is a mathematician in the Georgia Tech engineering department who studies animals.
He gets interested in a lot physical problems involving animals that seem unusual to "normal" people.
He has gotten two Ig Nobel awards and been named by the senator Jeff Flake and the author of the three of the twenty most wasteful scientific studies.
This NY Times article profiles him and describes some of his work and briefly reviews his Ig Nobel lineage.
Some of his work involves:

• How fast does it take mammals to pee?
• What is the optimal length of eyelashes?
• How are a mass of fire ants like a fluid or a self-healing material?

 

[Andrew Mason]

Interesting read. The importance of allowing natural curiosity to drive scientific inquiry cannot be overstated. It reminds me of Feynman's plates - how his curiosity piqued by watching a spinning plate in a cafeteria led to his formulation of QED and his Nobel (without the "Ig") prize.

AM