Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy Director of the Oxford Centre for Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations Fellow of the Queen's College
Personal Website:
+44 1865 615110
Address
University of Oxford
Andrew Wiles Building
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter
Woodstock Road
Oxford
OX2 6GG
Highlighted Publications:
Local minimizers and planar interfaces in a phase-transition model with interfacial energy
Calculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equations
issue 3
volume 40
page 501-538
(24 January 2011)
Orientability and Energy Minimization in Liquid Crystal Models
Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis
volume 202
page 493-535
(2011)
Nematic liquid crystals: From maier-saupe to a continuum theory
Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals
volume 525
page 1-11
(22 July 2010)
An analysis of non-classical austenite-martensite interfaces in CuAlNi
Proceedings of the International Conference on Martensitic Transformations, ICOMAT-08
page 383-390
(1 December 2009)
A variational model allowing both smooth and sharp phase boundaries in solids
Communications on Pure and Applied Analysis
issue 1
volume 8
page 55-81
(1 January 2009)
Recent Publications:
Partial regularity and smooth topology-preserving approximations of rough domains
CALCULUS OF VARIATIONS AND PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
issue 1
volume 56
(February 2017)
Full text available
Mathematics and liquid crystals
MOLECULAR CRYSTALS AND LIQUID CRYSTALS
issue 1
volume 647
page 1-27
(2017)
Full text available
Liquid Crystals and Their Defects
MATHEMATICAL THERMODYNAMICS OF COMPLEX FLUIDS
volume 2200
page 1-46
(2017)
Full text available
Quasiconvexity at the Boundary and the Nucleation of Austenite
ARCHIVE FOR RATIONAL MECHANICS AND ANALYSIS
issue 1
volume 219
page 89-157
(January 2016)
Full text available
Quasistatic Nonlinear Viscoelasticity and Gradient Flows
JOURNAL OF DYNAMICS AND DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
issue 3-4
volume 27
page 405-442
(December 2015)
Full text available
Research Interests:
John Ball's main research areas lie in the calculus of variations, nonlinear partial differential equations, infinite-dimensional dynamical systems and their applications to nonlinear mechanics. In solid mechanics, he is especially interested in the mathematics of microstructure arising from phase transformations in solids, using models based on nonlinear elasticity, where the problem of predicting microstructure morphology is related to deep unsolved questions of the multi-dimensional calculus of variations such as understanding quasiconvexity. A more recent research interest is in the mathematics of liquid crystals.