I'd like to alert all Phys-L regulars to the Internet presence of
Wonderfest 2000, The San Francisco Bay Area Festival of Science.
Wonderfest takes place SIMULTANEOUSLY at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford, and UCSF
on the weekend of February 12-13.
The heart of Wonderfest is a series of public dialogues between articulate
researchers in discussion of provocative scientific questions. More
information about the festival is available at http://www.wonderfest.org.
But please allow me to tell you about the Wonderfest dialogues accessible
over the Internet.
All six of Stanford's Wonderfest sessions will be transmitted at 56K. They
are:
Are Life-Supporting Worlds Common in the Cosmos?
Doug Lin, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, UC Santa Cruz
Geoff Marcy, Professor of Astronomy, UC Berkeley
Saturday, February 12, 10:00-11:30am
Is Intelligence Likely to Evolve Elsewhere in the Universe?
Chris McKay, Planetary Scientist, NASA-Ames Research Center
Seth Shostak, Public Programs Scientist, SETI Institute
Saturday, February 12, 1:00-2:30pm
Do We Know How Best to Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence?
Frank Drake, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, UC Santa Cruz
Dan Werthimer, Director of Project SERENDIP, UC Berkeley
Saturday, February 12, 3:30-5:00pm
Can Machines Think?
Nils Nilsson, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford
Terry Winograd, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford
Sunday, February 13, 10:00-11:30am
Do We Understand the Depth of Animal Awareness?
Walter Freeman, Professor of Neurobiology, UC Berkeley
Penny Patterson, Director of Research, The Gorilla Foundation
Sunday, February 13, 1:00-2:30pm
Do We Understand the Origin of Cosmic Structure?
George Blumenthal, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, UC Santa Cruz
Jeff Willick, Asst. Professor of Physics, Stanford
Sunday, February 13, 3:30-5:00pm
These are great scientists and great speakers, so if you can't get to the
Bay Area on February 12-13, just log-on to wonderfest.org. If you haven't
experienced netcasting before, you're probably in for a bit of
disappointment (the picture quality is nothing like television). But
perhaps the quality of content will compensate; it's also nothing like
television. Turn up the sound, and think of your computer as a glorified
radio.
By the way, if your academic institution is part of Internet2 (the high
bandwidth network linking hundreds of American universities), then you CAN
receive high quality video. You can also receive any of the sixteen
Wonderfest sessions from any of the three Wonderfest campuses, not just the
six sessions from Stanford. The physics-related sessions available over
Internet2 are:
Is the Weirdness of Quantum Physics Manifested in the Everyday World?
Charles Marcus, Professor of Physics, Harvard
Paul McEuen, Assoc. Professor of Physics, UC Berkeley
Sunday, February 13, 10:00-11:30am
Is the Universe 11-Dimensional?
Hirosi Ooguri, Professor of Physics, UC Berkeley
Stephen Shenker, Professor of Physics, Stanford
Sunday, February 13, 1:00-2:30pm
Have We Already Discovered All the Mathematics Worth Knowing?
Keith Devlin, Professor of Mathematics, St. Mary's College
Robert Osserman, Asst. Director, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
Sunday, February 13, 3:30-5:00pm
P.S. If you can help me to get the word out about Wonderfest, I'd sure
appreciate it. Please tell your students and your colleagues. If you're
at an Internet2 institution, please notify your network administrator that
you'd like to be able to receive Wonderfest events. Thanks, again.