Peter Lu

Peter James Lu, PhD, is a research fellow at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He works in the Department of Physics and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Lu is famous for his discoveries about old patterns and tools used by people long ago. He found special designs called quasicrystal patterns, similar to girih tiles, in medieval Islamic architecture. He also studied early machines in ancient China and discovered that people in neolithic China were the first to use diamond. His work helps us learn how clever and creative people were thousands of years ago.

Early life and education

Peter Lu was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. As a child, he loved collecting rocks and minerals. This hobby helped him win gold medals at the National Science Olympiad four times.

He studied physics at Princeton University. There, he worked with professors on science projects, including writing a paper about special shapes called quasicrystals. He finished his studies at Princeton with top honors and then went to Harvard University for more advanced learning.

Girih tiles and quasicrystals in medieval Islamic architecture

Peter Lu found that special tiles, called girih tiles, were used to make beautiful patterns in old buildings from medieval Islamic architecture. He worked with Paul Steinhardt to show how these tiles created complex designs. These designs can be seen on the walls of the Darb-i Imam shrine built in 1453 in Isfahan, Iran. This was important because it showed a simple way builders made intricate patterns. It also showed that people long ago created shapes called quasicrystalline patterns, before scientists found similar designs, called Penrose tilings, in the 1970s.

Technology in ancient Chinese art

Peter Lu discovered that ancient Chinese craftsmen used special machines to make spiral patterns on jade rings over 2,500 years ago. These patterns matched a precise mathematical shape called the Archimedes spiral. This showed that the craftsmen had advanced tools much earlier than people thought before.

Lu also found evidence that ancient Chinese people were the first to use diamonds, as early as 2,500 BC. They used tiny diamonds to polish special stone axes. These axes were made from a mineral called corundum. This discovery showed that diamonds were used much earlier than anyone knew before.

Other contributions

Peter Lu has worked with scientists like Motohiro Yogo and Charles Marshall to study very old fossils. They found that some ideas about how life recovers after big changes might not be right. This is because some important information is missing from the fossil records.

Lu also studied tiny particles in liquids. He did this in labs and on the International Space Station with David A. Weitz. In 2008, he helped answer a question that had been asked for a long time about how these particles stick together. His work has led to new ways to watch these particles and even living cells very clearly using special microscopes.