Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist

Professor Chad Orzel, of Union College will be giving a talk based on his latest book, Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist.

In the popular imagination, science is a collection of arcane facts that only a tiny minority of people are capable of understanding. In reality, science a process for generating knowledge by looking at the world, thinking of possible explanations for interesting phenomena, testing those models by observation and experiment, and telling the results of those tests to others. This process is an essential human activity, something we all do every day, often just for fun. In this talk, I will explain how everyday activities like card games, crossword puzzles, and sports make use of the same mental tools scientists have used to revolutionize our understanding of the universe.

As usual, we will begin with a short business meeting at 7:30 PM, speaker at 8. Following the presentation we will retire to the College Diner for dessert (or more) and cosmic discussion.

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Bio:

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Chad Orzel is a professor, blogger, and author of popular-audience books about physics. He has a BA in Physics from Williams College and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he did his thesis research in the laboratory of William D. Phillips (1997 Nobel laureate in Physics) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, studying collisions between laser-cooled xenon atoms less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. He then spent two years as a post-doc at Yale University in the group of Mark Kasevich, studying quantum effects in a Bose-Einstein Condensate. In 2001 he joined the faculty of Union College in Schenectady, NY, where he is now an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Since 2002 he has run the physics weblog Uncertain Principles (http://scienceblogs.com/principles/ ), now part of the ScienceBlogs network. He is the author of two books explaining modern physics through imaginary conversations with his German shepherd, Emmy, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog (Scribner, 2009) and How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog (Basic, 2012); these have been translated into over a dozen languages. His latest book, Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist (Basic, 2014) describes the way that everyday activities make use of the same process used for great scientific discoveries. He lives in Niskayuna, NY with his wife, Kate Nepveu, their two children, and Emmy, the Queen of Niskayuna.

Chad is returning to us after a great talk with us a few years back at MHAA based on his last book, How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog. He is bound to give another great talk! Come join us and see him again or for the first time.