Exploring the Logic of Evil

For many people, it is easier, maybe even comforting, to dismiss hatred and prejudice as aberrations — something practiced by twisted minds with no apparent logic. With a figurative shrug of the shoulders, we categorize these traits as “evil” and, therefore, irrational.

William I. Brustein won’t let us off that easily. The director of Pitt’s University Center for International Studies, Brustein is recognized internationally for his scholarly work.

He has written two books about anti-Semitism in Europe prior to World War II. One explores the reasons many Germans willingly joined the Nazi Party during its early years of power; the other examines anti-Semitism throughout Europe prior to the Holocaust. Full Article...

	David Snoke

Research Sheds Exciting New Light on Semiconductor Potential

Lasers and nanostructures help move excitons — is a breakthrough in computer technology on the horizon?

A University of Pittsburgh physicist and his research team have found a way to create and move small bits of optical energy called excitons over relatively long distances, a development that could be an important step in creating semiconductors in which excitons are shuttled and controlled to form “excitonic circuits.”

In conventional semiconductors, electrons or their absence (so-called holes) move in circuits to perform functions such as computation and storage of information. David Snoke used laser light to separate an electron from an atom. The “excited” electron plus the hole remaining on the atom compose an exciton, which moves like an energy particle and could potentially carry information.
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