Scholarly communications can get bogged down in discussions of metrics, publishing models, open access, promotion & tenure, and funder mandates. These discussions are important but miss that essential ingredient that makes the world spin and life worth living – passion!
The first CUA Physics Department Colloquium of February featured Raffaele Resta, Ph.D. speaking on Are Polarization and Magnetization Really Bulk Properties? Dr. Resta’s was an Adjunct professor from 1996-1999 at The Catholic University. The passion of the researcher drew the audience along on his more than forty year journey of the mind imaging and mathematically establishing polarization and magnetism theories.
Dr. Resta has one of the most cited papers and many books on his subjects. While we, who are not physicists, may not understand the intricate mathematical equations on Dr. Resta’s slides; we can recognize his passion for his subject and appreciate the language of this passionate research:
What is a good property? Why do we need somewhat exotic theories? What is the nearsighted QM Maxwell demon? One’s head spins with imagining that the nasty position operator “r” is ill defined, convergence with the Flake size, orbital magnetization density, or the Haldanium paradigm (F.D.M. Haldane, 1988)…
Yes! We can appreciate the language of research as poetry!
Dr. Resta published his first paper in 1983. His research is a lifetime journey that builds knowledge of his subject. Take a moment to study these lecture slides from Dr. Resta on the Chern invariant. Without understanding the math and physics in these slides, one quickly sees that Dr. Resta explains how new knowledge is based on knowledge that has come before. This is the beauty of research and the reason for colloquium, research publication, higher education and libraries.
Working in higher education – heck, the reason for higher education – is to explore ideas. Look at the CUA campus calendar to see the speakers and opportunities to experience, to immerse yourself in ideas and disciplines with master researchers.
Share your research passion on CUA’s Research Day April 15, 2016!
The purpose of the event is to celebrate and share the exciting scholarship and research of all members of the University community. The event is open to all undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff researchers in any area of study who wish to showcase their work. There will be oral and poster presentations across all areas of research. Student abstracts may result from mentored research projects or course-related research projects.
This February and beyond, experience research passion at CUA!
— Kimberly Hoffman