Science Spotlights

Exploring the Energy Frontier

Oct 12, 2009

In an effort to spur the development of new energy-related technology, the federal government has established 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers. Scientists affiliated with the Kavli Prize or Kavli Institutes play leading roles in three of these EFRCs. Located at the California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, here is a look at these researchers and their centers.

John Bowers, Efficiency Expert

Sep 28, 2009

John Bowers is the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also leads UCSB’s Institute for Energy Efficiency (IEE). Founded in 2008, Bowers has helped the Institute get off to a fast start. In April 2009 it was awarded a $19 million grant in federal stimulus funds to host of one of the federal government’s new Energy Frontier Research Centers.

Extreme Machines: What Science Needs from Computers

Jul 19, 2009

Computers are the workhorses of science. Without their power to crunch numbers, control instruments, turn raw data into intelligible patterns or pictures and test theories with simulations, most of what we now know about ourselves and the universe might still be a mystery. But is computing technology as we know it reaching its limits?

10-Dimensional Man

Jul 13, 2009

Theoretical physics has a beauty particularly appreciated by those highly adept in mathematics. One of those who does grasp the beauty and wonder of the quantum world -- and seeks to explain it to the rest of us -- is Hirosi Ooguri, the Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology. Ooguri is a theorist whose work bridges the disciplines of quantum physics and pure math.