May 26, 1997 Volume 86, Number 28 | Prev | Next | Index
Princeton University Office of Communications, Stanhope Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544
How fast does universe expand?
By Jacquelyn SavaniAstrophysics Professor Edwin Turner, his former student Tomislav Kundic (a post-doctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology, left) and Princeton graduate student Wesley Colley headed a team that has worked out a new method for determining the expansion rate of the universe. Measuring that rate -- Hubble's constant -- has long been of keen interest to astrophysicists because it is a key parameter for understanding the universe -- its age, history, structure and ultimate fate.
Lowenstein gift to create finance center
A $10 million gift from the Leon Lowenstein Foundation will establish the Bendheim Center for Finance. The gift honors foundation president Robert Bendheim '37. The Bendheim Center will focus on scholarship and teaching in finance as it relates to such issues of economic policy as asset pricing, corporate finance and the international movement of capital. The resources of the center will be used to support new faculty specializing in finance and related areas in management and public policy...
Daubechies brings Math Alive!
By Carol CarlsonCourse designed for non-majors -- even with "math phobia" -- relates subject to "applications everyone knows"
Here's an experiment to try at home -- if you dare: Take your favorite music CD. Using a pair of sharp scissors, scratch a neat straight line down the radius of the CD. Play the CD and listen carefully. When students in Ingrid Daubechies's Math Alive! class watched this experiment last February, they hushed as she took up her scissors, then audibly protested at the sound of the scratch. But what really fixed their attention was listening for evidence of the scratch. To their surprise, the CD played perfectly, without the slightest bump, jump or click. Daubechies, professor of mathematics and applied and computational mathematics, just smiled at their reaction, knowing that by scratching the CD, she had also piqued their curiosity.
"Basketball is a metaphor for life"
By Caroline MoseleyMeet the players: One is Pete Carril, Princeton's basketball coach from 1967 to 1996, who compiled a 514-261 record, winning 13 Ivy League championships. Now an assistant coach with the NBA's Sacramento Kings, he was recently elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Carril and Bill Bradley '65 are the only Princetonians in the Hall of Fame.
The other is Alumni Council Director Dan White '65, who joined the University staff in 1968, assuming his present position in 1980. Coach of Princeton's 150-lb. football team from 1968 to 1978 and of the freshmen for three subsequent years, he is also a prolific writer with eight books to his credit and more than a hundred magazine articles, many on Princeton-related topics and people.
Together, Carril and White created The Smart Take From the Strong: The Basketball Philosophy of Pete Carril . With an introduction by Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight, the book was published this year by Simon and Schuster.Aarsleff, Anderson, Clark, Gross, Jameson, Kuenne, Taylor transfer to emeritus status
Seven members of the faculty are transferring to emeritus status in 1996-97: Hans Aarsleff in English, Philip Anderson and David Gross in Physics, Robert Clark in Art and Archaeology, Antony Jameson in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Robert Kuenne in Economics, and Edward Taylor in Chemistry.
PWB editor