Saturday, October 01, 2005

EinsteinFest: Einstein's Big Idea


TV=mc2. Yes, the Perimeter Institute lectures and special events for the four-week-long EinsteinFest running in Waterloo (September 30th to October 23rd) have begun.

Our first lecture was this evening with Evan Hadingham who presented an introduction to a 35-minute series of clips from the forthcoming PBS Nova special to be aired on Tuesday, October 11th, 2005, from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm ET called Einstein’s Big Idea.

In a community known world-wide for Oktoberfest, an unbridled celebration of beer, polka, and pretzels, it’s a welcomed relief to have an alternative of substance to take us through the crazy season. That’s not to say I won’t have any pretzels or beer in the next month. The leaves are changing color after all; surely that’s a good enough reason to drink beer! But I can guarantee you won’t find me doing the polka or the chicken dance.

Not everyone can make the trip to Waterloo for EinsteinFest, nor is it likely that everyone can catch the PBS special a week from this coming Tuesday, but Hadingham informed us that the special is based on a book which most people can order online. It’s by historian David Bodanis and is entitled, oddly enough, E = mc2: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation.

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