Working in pairs, one person moved a slip of paper from their partner's peripheral vision to the center of their vision, and people realized that they detected the paper's presence before they could distinguish its color. Our perception of reality is shaped by the way our brain processes information. The science center, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2002, is the largest capital project in Oberlin's history. It will house the departments of biology, chemistry, neuroscience, and physics, as well as a new science library and a commons area, and it will secure Oberlin's place as a premier educator of scientists. It's about people.
Science depends on collaboration and mentoring.
And the process of mentoring future scientists is deeply humanistic. Thomas J. Klutznick, chair of the Board of Trustees, sounded a similar theme. What's most important about this building are the people who will occupy it. Everything comes down to the human scale. The squares in the dead center of the top and front faces of this cube appear to be different colors, but they're not.