School of Arts and Sciences

When most people think about pi, they associate the mathematical constant with arcs and circles. Mathematicians, however, are accustomed to seeing it in a variety of fields. But two University physicists were still surprised to find it lurking in a quantum mechanics formula for the energy states of the hydrogen atom.

A team led by professors Steven Manly and Kevin McFarland was honored “for the fundamental discovery of neutrino oscillations, revealing a new frontier beyond, and possibly far beyond, the standard model of particle physics.”

Scientists have been studying curiosity since the 19th century, but combining techniques from several fields now makes it possible for the first time to study it with full scientific rigor, according to the authors of a new paper.

Psychology professor Harry Reis has been awarded the 2015 Career Contribution Award by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). The award honors scholars who have made major theoretical, methodological, or empirical contributions to the field.

This year’s Polish Film Festival, put on by the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies, features stories of elusive happiness, personal struggles, history, and murder.

By extracting information from Instagram images and hashtags, computer science researchers have shown they can expose patterns of underage drinking more cheaply and faster than conventional surveys.

Because sound travels much more slowly than light, we can often see distant events before we hear them. That is why we can count the seconds between a lightning flash and its accompanying thunder. Now researchers in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences have shown that our brains can also detect and process sound delays that are too short to be noticed consciously, and that we use that information to fine tune what our eyes see when estimating distance.

Multidisciplinary artist Christopher Knowles rehearses in Todd Theatre. The Sundance Kid is Beautiful presents Knowles’s work in a staged performance environment that incorporates many of his diverse approaches, including dance, sculpture, music, and poetry.

University of Rochester’s Program of Dance and Movement’s presents When the Souls Rise, an original production that celebrates Halloween through dance, music, and drama. This is the first time the show will be performed at a university.

Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters, a new book published by the University’s Open Letter Press, details the rise and fall of the infamous 12 and 15-year-old mediums who convinced the world they could communicate with dead.