Mark P. Taylor
Associate Professor of Physics
Ph.D., Brandeis University
B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Gerstacker 118
330-569-5241
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Current Courses
Physics 214 - Fundamentals of Physics II
Other Courses I Regularly Teach: (view all current course webpages)
- Physics 213 - Fundamentals of Physics I
- Physics 114 - Principles of Physics II
- Physics 320 - Modern Physics
- Physics 330 - Analytical Mechanics
- Physics 340 - Physics Advanced Laboratory
- Physics 350 - Quantum Physics
- Physics 380 – Particle Physics Short Course (1 hr)
- Freshman Seminar 183 - Quarks to Quasars
- INTD 364 - Quantum Reality or What Really Happened to Schrodinger's Cat
Education
Ph.D., Physics, 1991 Brandeis University
Thesis: "Statistical Mechanical Models of Liquid Crystalline Ordering"
B.S., Physics, 1982 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Academic Appointments
- 05/05-present Hiram College, Associate Prof. of Physics
- 08/08-03/09, 12/09, 12/11 Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany, Visiting Research Prof.
- 09/01-05/05 Hiram College, Assistant Prof. of Physics
- 09/99-08/01 Swarthmore College, Visiting Assistant Prof. of Physics
- 07/98-08/99 Dartmouth College, Visiting Assistant Prof. of Chemistry
- 05/91-04/98 Dartmouth College, Postdoc and Visiting Scholar, Chemistry
Research Interests
Theoretical problems in statistical mechanics, especially in the area of fluids. Use of analytic theory, numerical analysis, and computer simulation to study structural and thermodynamic properties of liquid crystals, polymers, biological macromolecules, and other complex fluid systems.
Much of my recent research has been concerned with polymer chain conformation and collapse. I am especially interested in the coupling between chain conformation and local solvent structure and have been developing an approach to map the "many-body" chain-in-solvent problem to the simpler "few-body" single chain problem. This mapping is illustrated in the following Monte Carlo snapshot that shows a 50-bead hard-sphere chain (blue) in a hard-sphere solvent (red) at volume fraction 0.40 which we are able to represent as a single chain (green) interacting via a set of effective potentials. See the publications below with my students Sayuri Ichida and Greg Petersen for more details. This research is currently funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Materials Research (NSF-DMR grant 0804370). In the past two summers six Hiram students have participated in and contributed to this ongoing research project. [See my NSF Project Highlights].
I have also recently been investigating, in collaboration with Wolfgang Paul and Kurt Binder, phase transitions of an isolated polymer chain. Using advanced computer simulation techniques we have been able to map out the complete phase behavior of a flexible square-well (SW) homopolymer chain. Of particular interest is the finding that a chain with sufficiently short-range site-site interactions undergoes a direct freezing transition analogous the all-or-none type of folding transition exhibited by many small proteins. Below is the temperature-interaction range phase diagram for a 128 bead SW chain.
Selected Publications (View Full List)
- M.P. Taylor and S.R. Adhikari, Conformation of a flexible chain in explicit solvent: Exact salvation potentials for short Lennard-Jones chains, J. Chem. Phys. 135, 044903 (2011).
- M.P. Taylor, W. Paul, and K. Binder, Two-state protein-like folding of a homopolymer chain, Physics Procedia 4, 151-160 (2010).
- M.P. Taylor, W. Paul, and K. Binder, Phase Transitions of a Single Polymer Chain: A Wang-Landau Simulation Study, J. Chem. Phys. 131, 114907 (2009).
- M.P. Taylor, W. Paul, and K. Binder, All-or-none Protein-like Folding of a Flexible Homopolymer Chain, Phys. Rev. E 79, 050801(R) (2009).
- M.P. Taylor and S. Ichida*, Conformation of a Polymer Chain in Explicit Solvent: A Solvation Potential Approach, J. Polym. Sci. B: Polym. Phys. 45, 3319-3326 (2007).
- M.P. Taylor and G.M. Petersen*, Solvation Potentials for Flexible Chain Molecules in Solution: On the Validity of a Pair-wise Decomposition, J. Chem. Phys. 127, 184901.1-9 (2007)
- M.P. Taylor, Conformation of a Polymer Chain in Solution: An Exact Density Expansion Approach, J. Chem. Phys. 121, 10757-10765 (2004).
- M.P. Taylor, Collapse Transition of Isolated Square-Well Chain Molecules: The Exact Density of States for Short Chains, J. Chem. Phys. 118, 883-891 (2003).
- M.P. Taylor, Collapse Transition of Isolated Lennard-Jones Chain Molecules: Exact Results for Short Chains, J. Chem. Phys. 114, 6472-6484 (2001).
- M.P. Taylor and J.E.G. Lipson, Lattice vs. Continuum Models of a Polymer Chain, J. Chem. Phys. 111, 8701-8707 (1999).
- M.P. Taylor and J.E.G. Lipson, A Born-Green-Yvon Integral Equation Theory for Self-Interacting Lattice Polymers, J. Chem. Phys. 109, 7583-7590 (1998).
- M.P. Taylor, Some Exact Results for Isolated Hard-Disk Chain and Ring Molecules, Mol. Phys. 92, 265-270 (1997).
- M.P. Taylor and J.E.G. Lipson, Collapse of a Polymer Chain: A Born-Green-Yvon Integral Equation Study, J. Chem. Phys. 104, 4835-4841 (1996).
- M.P. Taylor, Configurational Statistics for Isolated Square-Well Chain Molecules: Exact Results for Short Chains, Mol. Phys. 86, 73-85 (1995).
- M.P. Taylor and J.E.G. Lipson, A Born-Green-Yvon Equation for Flexible Chain-Molecule Fluids: II. Applications to Hard-Sphere Polymers, J. Chem. Phys. 102, 6272-6279 (1995).
- M.P. Taylor, Square-Well Diatomics: Exact Low Density Results, Mol. Phys. 82, 1151-1164 (1994).
- M.P. Taylor and J. Herzfeld, Liquid Crystal Phases of Self-Assembled Molecular Aggregates, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 5, 2651-2678 (1993).
- M.P. Taylor and J. Herzfeld, Shape Anisotropy and Ordered Phases in Reversibly Assembling Lyotropic Systems, Phys. Rev. A 43, 1892-1905 (1991).
- M.P. Taylor and J. Herzfeld, Nematic and Smectic Order in a Fluid of Biaxial Hard Particles, Phys. Rev. A 44, 3742-3751 (1991).
- M.P. Taylor, R. Hentschke, and J. Herzfeld, Theory of Ordered Phases in a System of Parallel Hard Spherocylinders, Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 800-803 (1989).
Other Interests: Rock Climbing and Mountaineering
I've climbed seven grade VI's on El Capitan and solo aided several grade V's in Yosemite and Zion. Now I live in Ohio ... enough said? I'm still dreaming about at least one more route up the captain. I do manage a trip to the Canadian Rockies most every year. Most recent climb in Canada: solo ascent of the NW Ridge of Mt. Sir Donald (8/10) ... wild exposure with rime ice through the upper sections to keep me focused! Last year I was in the Colorado Rockies ... did the Maroon Bells and Mt. Pyramid along with some local cragging. This year was all work and no play.
Last Updated: Jan. 6, 2013
