To Infinity and Beyond, It's Getting Hot In Here: Forbes in the News!

Feb. 19, 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Forbes fellows have made headlines at, and beyond!, the University this week. Jeremy Kasdin, David Spergel, and Alejandro Rodriguez are positioning themselves for some far-out discoveries.

Professor Jeremy Kasdin of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Professor David Spergel of astrophysical sciences will be leading a team of NASA scientists on a mission to explore the expansion of space and what lies beyond our known universe. So awesome is this project that NASA invented a title for Profs. Kasdin and Spergel: adjutant scientists. Think quality control of cosmic proportions. Part of their leadership will require insuring that the project's development over 10 years strives always to satisfy the scientific goals.

The end-goal of the project is to produce WFIRST (Wide-field infrared space telescope), which will gaze its eye into the darkest corners of the universe, in the hopes of discovering what's lurking in the shadows. And who knows? Maybe something will be gazing back.

You can read the in-depth story and watch a concept video of what the team hopes to achieve with WFIRST in the year 2026 here.

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Also making headlines is another Forbes fellow and Princeton professor. Alejandro Rodriguez of electrical engineering is creating sparks in the study of heat exchange. Rodriguez's interest lies amongst the wee tiny nano particles of matter, and how proximity affects the transfer of heat between particular bodies. What used to be a close-range mystery now has mathematical explanations and substance.

By studying currents, energy, and reciprocity between objects, Prof. Rodriguez and his team have adapted the Stefan-Boltzmann law to their nano situations. All of this research and discovery will have very tangible real-world impacts: this formula can be applied to the energy cells in solar technology.

The full article is here.

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Information presented in these summaries is drawn from the articles linked above, and is intended to be a distilled version of the full-bodied articles on the home page.