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If you see a movie, or a TV advertisement, that involves a fluid behaving in an unusual way, it was probably made using technology based on the work of a Monash researcher.
Professor Joseph Monaghan who an influential method for interpreting the behaviour of liquids that underlies most special effects involving water has been with election to the Australian Academy of Sciences.
Professor Monaghan, one of only 17 members elected in 2011, was recognised for developing the of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) which has applications in the fields of astrophysics, engineering and physiology, as well as movie special effects.
His research started in 1977 when he tried to use computer simulation to describe the formation of stars and stellar systems. The algorithms available at the time were of describing the complicated systems that evolve out of chaotic clouds of gas in the galaxy.
Professor Monaghan, and his colleague Bob Gingold, took the novel and effective approach of replacing the fluid or gas in the simulation with large numbers of particles with properties that those of the fluid. SPH has become a central tool in astrophysics, where it is currently used to simulate the evolution of the universe after the Big Bang, the formation of stars, and the processes of planet building.