3-D: Short for three-dimensional. This term is an adjective for something that has features that can be described in three dimensions — height, width and length. colleague: Someone who works with another; a co-worker or team member.cosmic: An adjective that refers to the cosmos — the universe and everything within it.cosmic microwave background: A type of radiation that fills the universe with a faint glow. It seems to flow in all directions and with an equal intensity. It’s the heat left over from the Big Bang and that should exist throughout the universe. It is estimated to be about 2.725 degrees above absolute zero.cosmologist: A scientist who studies the origin and development of the cosmos, or universe.cosmos: (adj. cosmic) A term that refers to the universe and everything within it.data: Facts and/or statistics collected together for analysis but not necessarily organized in a way that gives them meaning. For digital information (the type stored by computers), those data typically are numbers stored in a binary code, portrayed as strings of zeros and ones.equator: An imaginary line around Earth that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.machine learning: A technique in computer science that allows computers to learn from examples or experience. Machine learning is the basis of some forms of artificial intelligence (AI). For instance, a machine-learning system might compare X-rays of lung tissue in people with cancer and then compare these to whether and how long a patient survived after being given a particular treatment. In the future, that AI system might be able to look at a new patient’s lung scans and predict how well they will respond to a treatment.physical: (adj.) A term for things that exist in the real world, as opposed to in memories or the imagination. It can also refer to properties of materials that are due to their size and non-chemical interactions (such as when one block slams with force into another).physicist: A scientist who studies the nature and properties of matter and energy.subtle: Adjective for something that may be important, but can be hard to see or describe. For instance, the first cellular changes that signal the start of a cancer may be only subtly different — as in small and hard to distinguish from nearby healthy tissues.telescope: Usually a light-collecting instrument that makes distant objects appear nearer through the use of lenses or a combination of curved mirrors and lenses. Some, however, collect radio emissions (energy from a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum) through a network of antennas.topology: (in math) The study of the properties of shapes and their relationships to each other. Shapes are related when they have similar properties even after deformation (such as bending, stretching, shrinking). They will not be similar if cut, torn or have had some pieces glued (or otherwise patched) onto it.universe: The entire cosmos: All things that exist throughout space and time. It has been expanding since its formation during an event known as the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago (give or take a few hundred million years).
The shape of our universe may be complex — like a doughnut
