Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2006 APS March Meeting
Monday–Friday, March 13–17, 2006; Baltimore, MD
Session H4a: Physics for Everyone |
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Sponsoring Units: DCMP Chair: Ivan Schuller, University of California, San Diego Room: Baltimore Convention Center 308 |
Tuesday, March 14, 2006 11:15AM - 11:51AM |
H4a.00001: The Physics Force- Physics for ages 6 to 106. Invited Speaker: The Physics Force is a very successful and entertaining outreach program of the Institute of Technology in the University of Minnesota developed to make science exciting and fun for students of all ages, from 6 to 106. Although all attendees, including high school and college students and guests from retirement homes, praise our performances, the primary focus is on K-6 students. The original Force consists of six k-12 teachers, Hank Ryan, Jon Barber, Jack Netland, Fred Orsted, Aaron Pinski, and Jay Dornfeld and Dan Dahlberg of the University of Minnesota Physics Department. The Force performed variations of The Physics Circus, our most popular show, at Disney's Epcot Center, parts of it were shown on Newton's Apple and several of us have performed demonstrations on the Knoff-Hoff Show, a very successful German T.V. science program. The goal of The Physics Force is to show students and the public \textbf{Science is Fun, Science is Interesting, and Science is Understandable}. By all measures we have available, we are extremely successful in reaching our goals. In the last three year cycle of our University support almost 100,000 residents of Minnesota (or about 2{\%} of the total population) saw a Physics Force performance; it appears we will surpass those numbers in the present cycle. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, March 14, 2006 11:51AM - 12:27PM |
H4a.00002: The Science of Optics; The History of Art Invited Speaker: Recently, renowned artist David Hockney observed that certain drawings and paintings from as early as the Renaissance seemed almost ``photographic'' in detail. Following an extensive visual investigation of western art of the past 1000 years, he made the revolutionary claim that artists even of the prominence of van Eyck and Bellini must have used optical aids. However, many art historians insisted there was no supporting evidence for such a remarkable assertion. I will show a wealth of optical evidence for his claim that Hockney and I subsequently discovered during an unusual, and remarkably productive, collaboration between an artist and a scientist. I also will discuss some of the implications this work has for the history of science as well as the history of art. These discoveries convincingly demonstrate optical instruments were in use -- by artists, not scientists -- nearly 200 years earlier than commonly thought possible, and account for the remarkable transformation in the reality of portraits that occurred early in the 15th century. http://www.optics.arizona.edu/ssd/FAQ.html. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, March 14, 2006 12:27PM - 1:03PM |
H4a.00003: Science as Performance: A Proactive Strategy to Communicate and Educate Through Theater, Music and Dance Invited Speaker: Theater, music, dance, the literary and the visual arts can convey the joys and controversies of science. We describe a program at the Graduate Center entitled Science as Performance which is designed to communicate to the public the excitement and wonder of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Over the past few years there have been major successes in communicating science to the public through the arts. This is especially evident in theater and film with such recent plays as Copenhagen and the Oscar winning film A Beautiful Mind. The performance series Science and the Arts has been developed and tested at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) in mid-Manhattan for more than four years, see http://web.gc.cuny.edu/sciart/ . We have developed working relationships with actors, playwrights, dancers, choreographers, musicians, composers, artists and scientists who work at the intersection of science and the arts. In this presentation we will illustrate many of our collaborations in theater, dance, music and art. The response to the series has shown that the arts can make the sciences accessible, relevant, and exciting to diverse audiences in ways that provide both scientific content and significant artistic and entertainment values. The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant to the Graduate Center to help replicate similar Science and the Arts programs on other campuses by involving both their science departments and their performing arts departments. Some results of campus visits will be described. The author will also describe his involvement with producing two musical versions of a play, Einstein’s Dreams based on the novel by Alan Lightman. One production opened at the Teatro da Trindade in Lisbon, Portugal at on October 21, 2005 for a four month run and a second and different production opens at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia in March 2006. [Preview Abstract] |
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