Georg Hoffstaetter de Torquat stands tall in the boat, one hand on the mast, his gaze fixed on a spot across the water. A warm September breeze has just changed direction on Cayuga Lake.
“One of the things I love best about sailing is that it feels like you’re in the grip of nature,” he says, “because the forces that act on you come directly from the wind. It’s amazing.”
He then turns his attention back to the handful of students on the small sailboat with him and on the several other boats clustered nearby. It’s time for another series of measurements for the day’s hands-on lesson.
Hoffstaetter de Torquat is a physics professor, and he can typically be found researching particle accelerator technology, whether for the Electron-Ion Collider project at Brookhaven National Laboratory or other applications like spectrometers and electron microscopes.
But for the fall 2024 semester, he is also teaching a new course, the Physics of Sailing—marrying his academic field with his lifelong love of the water.
Serge Petchenyi/Cornell University
From left, Xi Yang, PhD '10, senior lecturer of finance in the SC Johnson College of Business; Christine Ye; Christine Ye Award recipient Margaret E. Foster, doctoral candidate in communication; Cornelia Ye Award recipient Naman Agrawal, doctoral candidate in neurobiology and behavior; Cornelia Ye; and Derina Samuel, associate director of graduate student development at the Center for Teaching Innovation.
NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
Artist concept of the gas giant planet WD 1856 b orbiting a white dwarf star. The planet is 7 times larger than the Earth-sized white dwarf it orbits. WD 1856 b has methane and hazes in its atmosphere, which would give it a similar color to Saturn's moon Titan. The white dwarf formed from a star that died 5 billion years ago, and has been cooling ever since, giving it an orange colour similar to the Sun.
Sreang Hok/Cornell University
Dressed in clean-room suits, the Warrior-Scholar Project’s STEM boot camp cohort toured the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility.
