Professor Emeritus Hans Bethe, right, and senior Rafael Cox-Alomar talk during last week's Undergraduate Research Forum. Charles Harrington/University Photography
A Cornell Nobel laureate and the university's newest Marshall Scholar went looking for truth last week. One saw it in the future; the other found it in the past.
In a way, Professor Emeritus Hans Bethe and senior Rafael Cox-Alomar both said the same thing while giving their keynote addresses at Cornell's annual Undergraduate Research Forum on April 23 in Schwartz Auditorium of Rockefeller Hall. They said that to find truth, no matter in what discipline, a researcher must be willing to dig through vast amounts of information.
At the one-day forum, more than 100 exceptional undergraduates participated in about 90 research presentations, which covered most of the disciplines offered at Cornell. Presentations ranged from students describing their concept for a roller coaster with a 90-degree vertical drop to an undergraduate who spent six weeks compiling an oral history on Dutch citizens who rescued Jews during World War II. Few areas of study were left unexplored.
During his keynote address, Bethe discussed the implications of how "Pure Research Leads to Application." He explained to the crowd of about 200 that researchers often cannot dream of possible ramifications of their current work, and he gave Albert Einstein's theory of stimulated emission of light as an example. Today, we understand what that "theory" of the stimulated emission of light can produce -- a laser.
"You can repair a retina and you can cut and weld with it," Bethe said. "With a laser you can measure the distance from here to the moon and you can measure continental shift. This is where one bit of research leads to applications of enormous consequence.
"Pure research can always find application," he added.
Talking to forum participants about his own scientific career, which ranged from working on radar and the famed Manhattan Project during World War II to winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967, Bethe said, "I found pure research challenging. Don't think about the applications, think about the questions you want to answer. You don't need to know that some industry will be built on it. Truth. Find out what is really true."
Bethe took questions following his talk. Asked if truth can be found in other sciences, he said, "In sciences such as physics, natural sciences such as biology, there is truth. As for the social sciences, I have my doubts. How do people react to the same events? There is no simple answer."
Finally, one student questioned whether it is better to have talent or genius. Bethe smiled. "You need both. You need to study, and what you really need is a lot of hard work," he said.
Someone familiar with working hard and studying was the other keynote speaker, Rafael CoxAlomar, a Marshall Scholar for 1997 from Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. His talk was titled "Towards New PostColonial Societies? Politics and War in Turn of the Century Cuba and Puerto Rico," and he discussed how he explored the topic through primary and original research.
In his honors thesis, Cox-Alomar analyzed the Spanish-American War from the point of view of the colonies, learning how the internal societies of Cuba and Puerto Rico changed as a result of the war, he said.
Cox-Alomar spent his junior year studying at Oxford University, where he specialized in British history, and he will return there for his Marshall Scholarship. Last summer, while he was a Mellon Summer Research Fellow at Princeton, Cox-Alomar studied the Spanish-American War and how it affected the relationship between the United States and the Caribbean.
After the keynote addresses, student participants in the Undergraduate Research Forum, sponsored by the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board, enthusiastically rolled out their presentations during afternoon and evening sessions.
"You gain satisfaction by doing original research," Cox-Alomar said. "Then, after doing the research, you will have the tools by which to understand future possibilities."
Here is a listing of the Cornell undergraduate researchers who participated in the program and the categories under which they presented.
Chemistry and engineering: Michelle Acevedo, Michelle Cirino, Yung-Hoon Sam Ha and Kusai Merchant.
Behavior: Alison Brown, David Gilley, Beth A. Kellerman and Erin Lindquist.
Small-scale physics: Charlie Chen, Brent Freeze, Kan Ota, Yoshi Hishinuma, Marc Meyer, and Sean Spillane.
Biochemistry I: Michelle Delco, Dana Harvatine, Jessica Rothman and Iori Ueki.
Genetics: Anthony Fischetti, Leonard Lipovich, Srihari Sampath, Srinath Sampath and Michal Tracz.
Economics: Stan Kozlowski, Sharmila Murthy and Thevaki Thambirajah.
Humanities: Byung Jae Joo, Jennifer Melnychuk, Mara Green, Michelle Lee, Theresa Soriano, Trac Vu, and Josh Greenblatt.
Materials science & engineering and chemical engineering: Lisa Chang, Elaine Tam, Yoshikazu Hishinuma, Joanna Ossinger, Maria Rios and Jeff Valentine.
Poster session: Greg Aloe, Josh Freeh, Lance Hazer, Rowin Andruscavage, Robert Joyce, Kunwadee Sripanidkulchai, Tanya Bobo, Jaime R. Guzman, Gordon Klancnik and Kristen DiNorscia.
Rural sociology, development, and community education: Magdalena Cerda, Angie Datta and Meredith Fowlie.
Sociology: Leiha Macauley, Erika Pluhar, Laurel Zappert and Scott Zuchorski.
Psychology, behavior, and perception: Andrew Engel, Joy Geng, Sara Ann Lederman, Andrew Miner, Paul Papierno and Tiffany Yip.
Astronomy and chemistry: Elvir Camdzic, Mousumi Datta, David Kaplan and Aaron Sokasian.
Plant genetics: Prerana Jayakumar, Joy Bennett, Jessica Greene, Christine Horak, Miao Li and Shelly Shiflett.
Mechanical Engineering: Kevin Bersofsky, Chris Gibson, Preston Liddle, Andrew Nocar, Todd Sunderland, Julie Peterman, Amy Steele, Matthew Sheidow and RAFT members, William Thrasher, Min-Wei Lin, Andrew Aggarwala and Erik Arencibia.
Plant pathology: Soo Young Chung, Jason Coburn, Leslie Esterrich, Jessica Rothman and Teresa M. Vanek.
Materials science & engineering (solid state): Lorenzo Canlas, Kristen Fidler, Ming Wai Lam, Pimpa Limthongkul, Lisa McGill and Larry Norris.
Geology and ecology: Matthew Hahn, Margaret Milman, Linda Perry and Natalie Sierra.
Biochemistry II: Mingming Hao, Paul Kim, David Levinthal and Mauro Merolle.
Civil engineering: Tatiana Botelho, Hank Chung-Hung Chen, Seth Guikema, Michael Cooperman, Steven John Kao, Feroze Hussain Haidary, Jessica Lopatka and Anne Quistorff
English and government: Jade Chang, Mark Klempner, Eli Lehrer and Song Volk.