All posts tagged: university of cincinnati

Jupiter-like exoplanet helping scientists rethink how solar systems form

Jupiter-like exoplanet helping scientists rethink how solar systems form

Published by Jenni Sidey

A planet so distant that its starlight began traveling toward Earth around the Middle Ages has given one University of Cincinnati graduate student the kind of first look astronomers wait years for. Last fall, Paul Smith sat up through the night as data from the James Webb Space Telescope started appearing on his computer. Webb, orbiting about a million miles from Earth, had been pointed at TOI-2031A, a faint star 901 light years away. If the team’s calculations were right, the giant planet circling that star would pass in front of it during their narrow observation window, letting them examine its atmosphere in unusual detail. For Smith, who leads data analysis for the project’s first planet, the moment felt personal as well as scientific. “It was a lifelong dream of mine coming true. I was up all night to get the first look at the data,” he said. Paul Smith, pictured with the Cincinnati Observatory’s historic telescope, is using geology and physics tools to study exoplanets light years from Earth. (CREDIT: Connor Boyle/UC Marketing + …

Doing Philosophy in a Borrowed Tongue

Doing Philosophy in a Borrowed Tongue

Published by Jenni Sidey

Until I began my Ph.D. in the United States, I had spent my entire life in Korea, speaking Korean. While I had a sense of “using” other languages, having studied Chinese in high school, French in college, and English while studying analytic philosophy, I had never really experienced what it meant to “live” in a second language. During my first year as a Ph.D. student in the Philosophy department, I have experienced the burden of language barriers and the reality of untranslatability. As many international students can resonate, the self that speaks English feels remarkably different from the self that speaks one’s native tongue. In Korean, I am much funnier and bolder, more myself. My first semester was an ongoing struggle just to raise my hand and speak in graduate seminars. When translating my thoughts from Korean to English, the subtle nuances I intended to convey would vanish. I was painfully self-aware, terrified of speaking broken English. Whenever my limited English resulted an unsatisfactory presentation, I feared others would perceive this language deficiency as a …