A Guide to Princeton Libraries during a Pandemic

Posted on by Bridget Denzer

A view of the North Study section of the new Engineering Library underneath Fine Hall.

Last school year, during my first year at Princeton, I rarely ventured out to study in the libraries, instead preferring to stay in the comfort of my dorm room. However, after spending the fall semester at home, I realized just how much I missed the Princeton libraries, and I regretted not taking advantage of this amazing resource more often while on campus.

Going into spring semester, I challenged myself to explore the many incredible study spaces on campus that I had never been to. I was partly inspired by this post on the best study spaces on campus, and I wanted to provide an update on how studying on campus during a pandemic is like. A lot of the logistics around studying in the libraries have changed due to new Covid-19 regulations. So, in this article, I am going to lay out the changes to the Princeton library system and provide an update on some of the best new study spaces on campus.

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Mapping the Stars: An Interview with Reilly Bova ’20

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Reilly Bova ’20 is a Bachelor of Science and Engineering (B.S.E) Computer Science (COS) major with a strong interest in Physics. He spent this past summer conducting research in Princeton’s Physics department. His work included the visualization of deep universe galaxy clusters.

A snapshot from Reilly’s work of the Cosmic Microwave Background projected onto the edge of the observable universe.

Reilly took data on some of the oldest and farthest discovered galaxies (several billion light-years away) and mapped them onto a computational model of the observable universe. He also added to the visualization extremely precise maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which is radiation from about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Right after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that nothing—not even photons—could travel unimpeded, which rendered the universe opaque. Around year 380,000, the universe had cooled enough that neutral atoms could form, rendering it transparent (i.e., photons could now travel through it) and releasing an enormous amount of energy which we now call the CMB. This Cosmic Microwave Background has been traveling through the universe for billions of years. As the universe expands, the wavelength of the CMB radiation lengthens (i.e., “redshifts”). We can generate a map of what the universe looked like very early in its life by measuring  these redshifts.

I recently had the exciting opportunity to interview Reilly and find out more about his research experience.

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