There’s More to Fluids than Navier-Stokes
An article in Quanta Magazine underscores Professor Alberto Nicolas's role in shaping a modern understanding of fluid dynamics
In case you missed it, Columbia Physics Professor Alberto Nicolis was featured in an August 2026 Quanta Magazine article. “Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century,” by Charlie Wood, explores the history of fluid dynamics research and its applications to other fields in physics, like cosmology. Michael Landry, a former Columbia PhD student whose research investigates exotic phases of matter and effective field theory, is also featured in the article. matt
The piece dives into the study of fluid dynamics and how scientists’ understanding of fluids has evolved since the Navier-Stokes equations were developed in the first half of the nineteenth-century. “The Navier-Stokes equations presume that fluids are continuous substances that flow perfectly smoothly, no matter how much you zoom in on a point,” the article explains. But as knowledge and technology advanced, so did physicists' ability to scale the universe in ever smaller units, which ultimately revealed that fluids are not perfectly smooth. They consist of combinations of atoms and molecules, which makes them, in effect, “grainy.”
Prominently highlighted in the article is Professor Nicolis’ work in connecting Wilsonian theories of symmetry to the effective field theory of the cosmos. It explains how his hydrodynamics research, as seen in his 2005 cosmology paper and 2012 hydrodynamics paper, were vital to devising a new theory of fluids. In considering the similarities between the expanding universe and resting fluids, Professor Nicolis’ research helped develop a new understanding of fluids, opening the door to a world of new discoveries.
Alberto Nicolis earned his PhD from Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and joined the Columbia faculty in 2007. His research focuses on the structural aspects of quantum field theory and the applications of effective field theory to different phases of matter.
Michael Landry completed his PhD at Columbia in 2021 and was appointed as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT’s Center for Theoretical Physics. He is now a research scientist with MIT’s Quantum Measurement Group.
Read “Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century” in its entirety here.