Conformal Theory of the Dimensions of Diffusion Limited Aggregates

We employ the recently introduced conformal iterative construction of Diffusion Limited Aggregates (DLA) to study the multifractal properties of the harmonic measure. The support of the harmonic measure is obtained from a dynamical process which is complementary to the iterative cluster growth. We use this method to establish the existence of a series of random scaling functions that yield, via the thermodynamic formalism of multifractals, the generalized dimensions D(q) of DLA for q >= 1. The scaling function is determined just by the last stages of the iterative growth process which are relevant to the complementary dynamics. Using the scaling relation D(3) = D(0)/2 we estimate the fractal dimension of DLA to be D(0) = 1.69 +- 0.03.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Chao Yuen Ren (1892–1982)

Y. R. Chao is easily the most famous linguist to have come out of China. Born before the end of the last dynasty in China, he received a traditional Confucian education, but was also one of the first Chinese people to be sent to the West for training in modern Western science (under the Boxer Indemnity Fund). The remarkable breadth and scope of his studies included physics, mathematics, linguistics, musical and literary composition, and translation, and he was a pioneer in many of these fields

Chinese as a topic-comment (not topic-prominent and not SVO) language

Many linguists in China and the West have talked about Chinese as a topic-comment language, that is, a language in which the structure of the clause takes the form of a topic, about which something is to be said, and a comment, which is what is said about the topic, rather than being a language with a subject-predicate structure like that of English. Y. R. Chao (1968), for example, said that all Chinese clauses have topic-comment structure and there are no exceptions

Turbulence and Multiscaling in the Randomly Forced Navier Stokes Equation

We present an extensive pseudospectral study of the randomly forced Navier-Stokes equation (RFNSE) stirred by a stochastic force with zero mean and a variance $\sim k^{4-d-y}$, where $k$ is the wavevector and the dimension $d = 3$. We present the first evidence for multiscaling of velocity structure functions in this model for $y \geq 4$. We extract the multiscaling exponent ratios $\zeta_p/\zeta_2$ by using extended self similarity (ESS), examine their dependence on $y$, and show that, if $y = 4$, they are in agreement with those obtained for the deterministically forced Navier-Stokes equation ($3d$NSE). We also show that well-defined vortex filaments, which appear clearly in studies of the $3d$NSE, are absent in the RFNSE.Comment: 4 pages (revtex), 6 figures (postscript

Different transport regimes in a spatially-extended recirculating background

Passive scalar transport in a spatially-extended background of roll convection is considered in the time-periodic regime. The latter arises due to the even oscillatory instability of the cell lateral boundary, here accounted for by sinusoidal oscillations of frequency $\omega$. By varying the latter parameter, the strength of anticorrelated regions of the velocity field can be controled and the conditions under which either an enhancement or a reduction of transport takes place can be created. Such two ubiquitous regimes are triggered by a small-scale(random) velocity field superimposed to the recirculating background. The crucial point is played by the dependence of Lagrangian trajectories on the statistical properties of the small-scale velocity field, e.g. its correlation time or its energy.Comment: 9 pages Latex; 5 figure

A qq-anaolg of the sixth Painlev\'e equation

A $q$-difference analog of the sixth Painlev\'e equation is presented. It arises as the condition for preserving the connection matrix of linear $q$-difference equations, in close analogy with the monodromy preserving deformation of linear differential equations. The continuous limit and special solutions in terms of $q$-hypergeometric functions are also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX file (Two misprints corrected