..As found on someone’s blog, I forget which! 😉
Sometime next spring, the Prince-ton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory (PEAR), a little-known but sometimes-controversial participant in the University’s research community, will clear its shelves and close its door, bringing an end to 27 years of exploring mind-matter interactions in a scientific context.
Located on the ground floor of the E-Quad’s C-wing, the lab seems out of place, with a well-worn couch, wood-paneled walls, and a collection of aging game-like devices on which many of the lab’s trials were performed. When Robert Jahn’s ‘1 *55, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering emeritus, first proposed the lab in the late 1970s, its mission also seemed out of place, or at least out of the mainstream.
Jahn, the dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences from 1971 to 1986 and an expert in rocket propulsion, was intrigued by a student project related to psychic phenomena. He recognized that many engineering disciplines electrical, chemical, and bioengineering had roots in other sciences. “The one interface that hadn’t really been explored was that of psychology â€the human mind,”Jahn said in a recent PAW interview. “What could engineering utilize, in terms of basic knowledge of how the mind works.”