Memet, Edvin2019-12-112019-112019-09-112019Memet, Edvin. 2019. Parking, Puckering, and Peeling in Small Soft Systems. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42013113The field of soft matter has been described as ``an amalgamation of methods and concepts, [...] an interdisciplinary offspring'' emerging from the intersection of physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, materials, and mathematics. Nevertheless, a unifying characteristic of soft matter systems can be identified as reconfigurability, due to a keen response to external forces. Here we examine four soft systems: colloidal particles assembling randomly onto a thin wire, bird species assembling in a tropical forest, microtubules buckled using optical tweezers, and elastic filaments (microtubules) or sheets (graphene) exhibiting rate-independent adhesion hysteres in peeling.application/pdfensoft matterrandom sequential adsorptionmicrotubuleshysteresisbucklingpeelingadhesion hysteresisacoustic ecologyavian communicationacoustic niche hypothesisspectral partitioningmicrotubule softeningmicrotubule bucklingmicrotubule frayinggraphene peelingThesis or Dissertation2019-12-11