May 3, 2002

Colloquium Topic: My Father Sees Muons in the Driveway, or How to Explain Physics to Everybody Else

When I was in graduate school studying physics, my father would send me drawings of subatomic specimens he claimed to have found in the backyard or around the house. They were mostly muons, though the word "boson" also captured his imagination. In my time as a science reporter at National Public Radio, I've tried very hard to capture people's imagination, and keep them from tuning out during science stories. This talk promises to make any scientist the life of the party. It will also make you rich, famous and irresistible to potential mates.

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Colloquium Speaker: David Kestenbaum

David Kestenbaum became unreasonably obsessed with small things at a young age. He studied quarks as an undergraduate at Yale University and his graduate work in physics at Harvard University where he received his Ph.D. in 1996. His thesis detailed part of the discovery of the top quark. Dr. Kestenbaum received a journalism fellowship from the American Physical Society the same year, and won the Evert Clark award for young science journalists in 1997. His work has appeared in Science, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He spent a year as a reporter for Science, before moving to National Public Radio in 1999.