Of Soot and Sunflowers

This talk will follow one major track through my research over the past half century. It starts with how soot forms in fuel rich flames and the resultant fractal morphology. This fractal nature is universal to all aggregating systems of solid particles and, as I will explain, can ultimately lead to gelation. Experiments to create aerosol gels in closed chambers led to the chance discovery of a viable method to make multi-layer graphene of commercial value. The finish finds a connection between the soot fractal morphology and ancient mathematics of the Golden Mean, the Fibonacci Series and non-equilibrium growth, as demonstrated, for example, in the sunflower.