One of these is on Thursday, 20 August at the Queens Park Theatre in Geraldton. The Junior Players of Theatre Eight are presenting Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Galileo at 8pm. Prior to this at 7.30pm I will be giving a public talk at the theatre about Galileo, discussing his contributions to science, especially physics and astronomy. The play itself runs for the following two nights at 7.30pm with a matinee on at 2pm on the Saturday. Tickets are available for $10 from Queens Park Theatre on 08 9956 6662.

Poster for Theatre Eight's production of The Life of Galileo

This is certainly a list to reminisce over and identify works to seek out and read over coming years.

1. Micrographia, Robert Hooke
2. *The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
3. Never at Rest, Richard Westfall
4. *Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman
5. Tesla: Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney
6. The Devil’s Doctor, Philip Ball
7. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes
8. Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, Dennis Overbye
9. *Physics for Entertainment, Yakov Perelman
10. 1-2-3 Infinity, George Gamow
11. *The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene (owned but as yet only skimmed)
12. Warmth Disperses, Time Passes, Hans Christian von Bayer
13. Alice in Quantumland, Robert Gilmore
14. Where Does the Weirdness Go? David Lindley
15. *A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
16. A Force of Nature, Richard Rhodes
17. Black Holes and Time Warps, Kip Thorne
18. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
19. Universal Foam, Sidney Perkowitz
20. Vermeer’s Camera, Philip Steadman
21. The Code Book, Simon Singh
22. The Elements of Murder, John Emsley
23. *Soul Made Flesh, Carl Zimmer
24. *Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis
25. The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, George Johnson
26. Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman
27. *Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
28. The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, Lisa Jardine
29. A Matter of Degrees, Gino Segre
30. The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence Krauss
31. E=mc<2>, David Bodanis
32. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife
33. Absolute Zero: The Conquest of Cold, Tom Shachtman
34. A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Janna Levin
35. *Warped Passages, Lisa Randall
36. Apollo’s Fire, Michael Sims
37. Flatland, Edward Abbott
38. Fermat’s Last Theorem, Amir Aczel
39. Stiff, Mary Roach
40. Astroturf, M.G. Lord
41. The Periodic Table, Primo Levi
42. Longitude, Dava Sobel
43. The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg
44. The Mummy Congress, Heather Pringle
45. The Accelerating Universe, Mario Livio
46. Math and the Mona Lisa, Bulent Atalay
47. *This is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin
48. The Executioner’s Current, Richard Moran
49. Krakatoa, Simon Winchester
50. Pythagorus’ Trousers, Margaret Wertheim
51. Neuromancer, William Gibson
52. The Physics of Superheroes, James Kakalios
53. The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump, Sandra Hempel
54. Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, Katrina Firlik
55. Einstein’s Clocks and Poincare’s Maps, Peter Galison
56. The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
57. The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
58. The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker
59. An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears
60. *Consilience, E.O. Wilson
61. Wonderful Life, Stephen J. Gould
62. Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard
63. Fire in the Brain, Ronald K. Siegel (owned but unread)
64. The Life of a Cell, Lewis Thomas
65. Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris
66. Storm World, Chris Mooney
67. The Carbon Age, Eric Roston
68. The Black Hole Wars, Leonard Susskind
69. Copenhagen, Michael Frayn
70. From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne
71. *Gut Symmetries, Jeanette Winterson
72. Chaos, James Gleick
73. *Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos
74. The Physics of NASCAR, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky
75. Subtle is the Lord, Abraham Pais

There are several books on this list that I haven’t heard of I must admit. I’m not sure NASCAR travels well out of the US too though thanks to Jennifer’s earlier review I had heard of this book.

Here are a few recommendations (in no particular order):

1. Sleepwalkers, Arthur Koestler
2. Sidereus nuncius Galileo
3. The Birth of a New Physics, I. Bernard Cohen
4. The Pinball Effect, James Burke
5. Kepler and Doctor Copernicus (two novels) by John Banville

I have a tendency to buy books faster than I get a chance to read them so have several books on Jennifer’s list that I own but have yet to get around to reading. What about you?

• How can you tell who is a physicist?
• What is a giveaway phrase?
• Who can understand what you say?
• Is there a difference between physicist and other species of scientist?
  

What are some ways to celebrate? We had a lively discussion about this at work today, heavy physics speak ensued (strictly speaking the subspecies of astrobabble). One colleague casually mentioned how the sea in the harbour looked reddish the other day when he was out sailing. No, he wasn’t referring to the colour of the water, he  was talking like a physicist. This type of talk does not seem unusual where I work.  One suggestion was that we go out and have pies for lunch. What else can we do? What are you going to do?

Let me know your classic Talk Like a Physicist phrase for π day.  I’d also recommend you visit the website, read up on some FAQs and immerse yourself in a like-minded community. Remember, this is a non-trivial request.

Anyway, I’m up in Kempsey in Northern NSW for Croc Festival, a two-day cultural and educational festival for Indigenous students. A colleague and I are running an activity A History of the Universe in 45 Minutes! ten times with different classes over the two days. Should make for a hectic time. Fortunately the sky has cleared so we can view the Sun with our Sunspotter but alas no sunspots at present.

An activity such as this poses some interesting questions; what would you cover in a single slot of time? We have five activities embedded in it but haven’t had a chance to test the complete activity yet so tomorrow will be a great initiation. Once we get a working version and refine it I’ll try and publish it.

Unfortunately we are not allowed to photograph within the Festival grounds but hopefully the organisers will post some up later on their site. The student concert tomorrow night should be pretty spectacular with lots of song and dance.

More travel on Friday – back across to Parkes for the Open Weekend at the Parkes Radio Telescope, The Dish. This will be well worth visitng as it is the only time the telescope is open to the Public for tours. There will be a range of talks, a community market, helicopter rides and an night time open air viewing of the film The Dish by the Dish itself on Saturday. More on this later.

I’m a science educator specialising in astronomy. My interests include astronomy, school education, students doing research, critical thinking and use of ICT for learning. I’m a skeptic with a tendency to iconoclasm.

I hope to use this blog to foster discussion of astronomy, science education and inquiry and polish my ICT skills along the way.