Cancelled From Robot Uprising to Rise of the Dead — Lessons in Engineering and Biology from Active Matter

by Dr. Matan Yah Ben Zion

Radboud University

at Physics Colloquium

Tue, 24 Mar 2026, 12:00
ZOOM

Abstract

Cooperation is vital for the survival of a swarm. No single bird is faster than a jet plane, and no single fish is faster than a speed boat — humans beat individual animals in air, land, and sea. But, when animals cooperate and swarm, they beat us since biblical times. The technological gap in engineering artificial swarms suggests we are still missing principles in designing collective behavior far from equilibrium. Inspired by non-equilibrium statistical mechanics I will present synthetic systems where collective behavior emerges from simple interactions: Starting from equilibrium I will show how to combine DNA binding and bending to propagate structural information from the molecular to colloidal length scale; I will then show how synthetic, bacteria sized-swimmers can cooperate on the meso-scale; I will devote the bulk of my talk to present our recent findings in rudimentary, granular robots, where we find that Newtonian mechanics alone offer the minimal ingredients required for collective behavior such as cooperative transport, and application in biomechanics, where a widespread behavior can be reduced to basic mechanics. I will conclude by proposing a framework to recast a broad class of active systems into an effective attraction to be used on the engineering materials on the molecular/colloidal scale, offering the thermodynamic machinery for programming self-assembly of intelligent, autonomous matter beyond thermal systems.

Created on 19-03-2026 by Chapman, Shira (schapman)
Updaded on 24-03-2026 by Chapman, Shira (schapman)