1.961 Life at low Reynolds numbers

The emphasis of the class will be on the application of physical and fluid dynamical principles to life at the microscale, in particular to aquatic systems. You will learn to grasp the fundamental aspects of a wide range of flow phenomena at the microscale in terms of a few relatively simple physical laws. You will develop an intuition for the fundamental properties of living systems at low Reynolds numbers. At the same time, you will be exposed to a range of problems in low Reynolds number fluid mechanics, with applications to biology, ecology, chemistry and human health.