Department of Physics, Duke University
Next week, I’ll be co-organizing the 6th International Conference on Packing Problems at TU/e, in the Netherlands. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends, meeting new colleagues, and, of course, learning some new physics and mathematics along the way. I’m Continue reading ICPP2026
It’s now official! I’ll be in Munich for a few days this summer, running a very exciting workshop with my WiHQP collaborators. Join us if you’re around!
Our book, Women in the History of Quantum Physics, has been (mostly positively) reviewed in various outlets over the last six months. On its own, that’s quite an accomplishment. According to our publisher, it’s increasingly rare for such a book Continue reading WiHQP reviewed in Nature
I’m quite proud of our latest paper: How do simple grains or particles suddenly lock together and become rigid—a process known as jamming? This work approaches this classic physics problem from a new angle: by asking how algorithms explore configuration Continue reading Jamming: algorithms and geometry
Our review on amorphous sphere packings has just been published in a new RSC volume on packing, announced recently in an elegant press release. Congratulations to my collaborator, Peter Morse, for making this happen! If you’d like a personal copy Continue reading Amorphous Packings of Spheres
As of July 1, 2025, Patrick Charbonneau is Professor of Physics at Duke University.
Over the summer, Professor Charbonneau had the privilege of visiting MOTAT in Auckland, New Zealand, where the Cambridge Meccano model differential analyzer can now be found. He also got to give a talk to museum staff and volunteers about his Continue reading Travel News
Congratulations, Dr. Mingyuan Zheng, for her work on the not-so-glass-like behavior of active matter being accepted in PRL! It’s a nice bow in our recent gathering in Suzhou. Updated June 4, 2025: Published!
Professor Charbonneau is the next Lead Editor of PRE, starting this coming January. Stay tuned for more on this theme…
Our long-thermalizing review on colloidal hard spheres is now out! In the (authors-revised) words or the publisher: “Hard spheres—simple particles that cannot overlap, like billiard balls—may at first glance seem to be a rather abstract model of matter. However, the Continue reading Hard spheres in focus
