Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, who visited the Writers Institute in 2004, discusses ways of coping with killer asteroids, today in Wired.
"Solar System debris rains down on Earth in vast quantities — more than a hundred tons of it a day. Most of it vaporizes in our atmosphere, leaving stunning trails of light we call shooting stars. More hazardous are the billions, likely trillions, of leftover rocks — comets and asteroids — that wander interplanetary space in search of targets." More.
Tyson came to Albany to discuss The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist (2000), Tyson. In the memoir, he traces the arc of his remarkable life, from his beginnings as an eccentric African-American kid who loved to study the night sky from the roof of his Bronx apartment building, to his role as one of the most influential scientists in his field.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Surviving Killer Asteroids
Friday, January 20, 2012
The Search for Earth's Twin
Michio Kaku, who visits February 21, talks about earthlike planets on "big think."
Dr. Kaku addresses the following question:
"A recently discovered planet named Kepler 22b apparently has a very, very similar composition to Earth, although I don’t think they have it exactly figured out yet. What do discoveries like this mean and what is the possibility of many other earth-like planets being out there?" See the video interview.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Physics, Poetry, Planetarium Shows
Alan Lightman, bestselling novelist and theoretical physicist who opens the Spring 2012 Visiting Writers Series on February 2nd, has applied his talents to number of genres, including musical adaptations of his bestselling novel Einstein's Dreams, as well as poetry, fables, essays, nonfiction and that least-studied of all literary genres: the planetarium show.
Below is a Library Journal review by Sue Russell of Lightman's book-length narrative in verse, Song of Two Worlds (2009):
"Here, novelist (Einstein's Dreams) and physicist Lightman has created a vivid and moving first-person narrative in verse. The two worlds of the title are the two sections of the book: 'Questions with Answers' and 'Questions without Answers,' with the former representing scientific inquiry and the latter the intuitive capacity that allows us to respond to great art. But this work is no simple intellectual exercise--it is the story of a man who is exiled within his own country, whose intelligence and aloneness keep him perpetually knocking at the door 'naked ... wearing only my questions....'"
And here's an article that discusses a planetarium show designed by Lightman for the newly renovated Charles Hayden Planetarium in Boston (which reopened in Feb. 2011).
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Dava Sobel on WAMC This Morning
In association with her visit to the Writers Institute today, Dava Sobel will be on WAMC's The Roundtable this morning to speak about her new biography of Copernicus, the Polish astronomer who overturned humankind's understanding of the Universe, twenty years before Galileo's birth.
No exact time is available, but based on the schedule of guests, we anticipate she will be on around 11AM.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Power of Books!
"It doesn't happen often, but there are times when a single book turns the world on its head. Isaac Newton's Principia unraveled the mystery of gravity. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species explained how evolution worked."
"But before either of these, there was On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres by Nicolaus Copernicus. It was published in 1543. In it, Copernicus made the astounding claim that Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around."
Dava Sobel, who visits tomorrow, Nov. 10, was profiled yesterday on NPR. The author of A More Perfect Heaven, a new biography of Copernicus, Sobel speaks about the huge impact the astronomer's small book had on human civilization. More.
A Heavenly Book, Tomorrow
Dava Sobel talks about her new biography of Copernicus, A More Perfect Heaven, tomorrow, November 10, at 4:15pm in the Assembly Hall, Campus Center on the University at Albany uptown campus, and at 8pm in the same location.
Dava Sobel, bestselling science writer, is the author most recently of A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos (2011), the story of the reclusive Polish Catholic priest (1473-1543) whose scientific observations changed mankind’s view of the Universe. Sobel explains Copernicus’s discovery that the earth revolves around the sun, and his courageous defiance of received wisdom, religious tradition and ordinary “common sense.” She also chronicles the events of the “Copernican Revolution,” how his manuscripts circulated secretly among the great scientific personalities of Renaissance Europe, and how his work finally came to be published for a wider audience as the author lay on his deathbed.
Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Julia Keller called it, “A heavenly book…. a great story filled with fascinating characters, excruciating near-misses and the sudden splendor of the new discovery,” and said, “[T]his beautiful book, combining science and a sort of poetic awe, is emblematic of her work as a whole.” The Library Journal reviewer said, “Sobel has the knowledge and writerly grace to explain what Copernicus accomplished,” and called it, “A book on science and personality that should intrigue us all.”