The United States wastes two-thirds of its energy, including 80 percent of the energy used in transportation. This waste is unnecessary. As Dr. Prentiss demonstrates in Energy Revolution: The Physics and Promise of Efficient Technology, conversion to wind and solar power could generate 100 percent of the United States average total energy demand for the foreseeable future. She discusses how these technologies work and how they can be phased in quickly. Her book provides clear facts and explanations, and she makes a compelling argument for making the changes now.
Mara Prentiss is Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics at Harvard University. The Prentiss group focuses on using physics tools to elucidate important problems in biology. The basic principles governing self-assembly have been a focus of recent work. It has long been known that any complex self-assembling system faces a tradeoff between the speed at which the system explores different configurations and the stability of the final product. The Prentiss group has shown that this paradox can be overcome in various systems, but their research has focused on two systems that play important roles in the interactions between chromosomes in vivo.