# gst: apropos of swirling granular media, a geometric frustration; will these entities turn left or right?

<< Granular material in a swirled container exhibits a curious transition as the number of particles is increased: At low densities, the particle cluster rotates in the same direction as the swirling motion of the container, while at high densities it rotates in the opposite direction.  >>

AA << show that the transition to counterrotation is friction dependent. At high particle densities, frictional effects result in geometric frustration, which prevents particles from cooperatively rolling and spinning. Consequently, the particle cluster rolls like a rigid body with no-slip conditions on the container wall, which necessarily counterrotates around its own axis. Numerical simulations verify that both wall-disk friction and disk-disk friction are critical for inducing counterrotation. >>

Lisa M. Lee, John Paul Ryan, et al. Geometric frustration induces the transition between rotation and counterrotation in swirled granular media. Phys. Rev. E 100, 012903. July 8, 2019.     https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.100.012903  

Leah Burrows. Solving the pancake problem. Harvard University. Aug 30, 2019.    https://m.phys.org/news/2019-08-pancake-problem.html