The Carl F. Eyring Science Center (ESC) is one of the science buildings on the
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...
(BYU) campus in
Provo,
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
, United States. It was built in 1950 and named after
Carl F. Eyring in 1954.
Description
The ESC houses the departments of Physics and Astronomy, Geology, and Food Science and Nutrition. The Department of Chemistry has in the past been located at the ESC but is not currently headquartered there.
In 1968, an underground physics research lab was added to the north end of the building. Research on plasma, atomic processes, lasers, high-pressure physics, nanotechnology,
acoustics
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...
, and cold fusion have been conducted here. It is the home of two modern
TEMs.
The
Royden G. Derrick Planetarium is also in the building. This 119-seat facility with a acoustically-treated dome was built in 2005 to replace the smaller, outdated Sarah Barrett Summerhays Planetarium. In the summer of 2006, a new dome was installed on the ESC's observatory to better allow for astronomical study on campus. The building also has several acoustics labs including two
anechoic chamber
An anechoic chamber (''an-echoic'' meaning "non-reflective" or "without echoes") is a room designed to stop reflection (physics), reflections or Echo (phenomenon), echoes of either sound or electromagnetic waves. They are also often isolate ...
s and two
reverberation chambers for performing acoustics research.
The 5th and 6th floors of the ESC constitute the
Orson Pratt Observatory.
In the early years of the ESC,
James A. Jensen's dinosaur displays were often in the lobby. However, since the building of the
BYU Earth Science Museum, dinosaur displays are less common.
The main lobby of the building is noted for its
Foucault pendulum. It also houses a student-run restaurant, the Pendulum Court, during the fall and winter semesters.
The ESC was the first building at BYU to have an elevator.
See also
*
List of Brigham Young University buildings
*
List of science centers
References
* http://magazine.byu.edu/g/?act=view&a=329
* https://web.archive.org/web/20110720101751/http://www.bestworkplaces.cutr.usf.edu/pdf/bwc_media/what-students-missed.pdf
* http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM33F
* http://www.heatheng.com/Education/Project%20Eyring%20Science.htm
External links
{{Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University buildings
1950 establishments in Utah
Science museums in Utah