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New at Chabot Space & Science Center — 
Distinguished Lecture Series
January through May 2001

(January 2, 2001, Oakland, CA) — From a supernova explorer to an astronomer leading the world's most comprehensive search for extraterrestrial life, Chabot Space & Science Center is proud to gather some of the finest speakers in science to address topics in the forefront of humankind's search for knowledge. The 2001 Distinguished Lecturer Series takes place in the CSSC's Tien Megadome Theater at 7:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month, from January through May 2001. Each lecture will be preceded by a classical music overture of the presenter's choice. 

Tickets are $8.75 and can be obtained through CSSC's box office, (510) 336-7373 or through www.TicketWeb.com. Seating is limited and advance purchase is recommended.

Thursday, January 18 7:30pm lecture
Dr. Timothy Ferris — Life Beyond Earth
People have speculated about life beyond Earth since the dawn of history. What's new is that we have now begun to acquire the tools necessary to replace some of these speculations with fact. Timothy Ferris, author of the upcoming book Life Beyond Earth and host of the two-hour PBS special of the same title, reports on the status of the search for extraterrestrial life and explores how we can best learn whether we are alone in the cosmos. Professor Ferris has selected the first movement of the 2nd Brandenburg Concerto, conducted by Karl Richter for the Munich Bach Orchestra, as his musical prelude. This same recording was sent with the Voyager spacecraft on its long journey through our Solar System.

About the lecturer: Timothy Ferris is the author of ten books - among them the best sellers The Whole Shebang and Coming of Age in the Milky Way, which were named by the New York Times as two of the leading books published in the 20th Century. Ferris wrote and narrated two television specials - "The Creation of the Universe," which has aired in network prime time annually for the past 15 years, and "Life Beyond Earth," which premiered on PBS Nov. 10, 1999. He produced the Voyager phonograph record, an artifact of human civilization launched aboard the Voyager interstellar spacecraft in 1976, and was among the journalists selected as candidates to fly aboard the Space Shuttle in 1986. Professor Ferris has taught in five disciplines at four universities, and is emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Thursday, February 15 7:30pm lecture
Dr. Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute — SETI 2020: A Roadmap for Future SETI Observing Projects
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence could succeed tomorrow, or it may be an endeavor for multiple generations. Dr. Tarter will discuss the SETI Institute's plans for research for the next few decades, which include continuing and expanding the radio search, beginning searches for optical and infrared pulses, and building an omni-directional sky survey array capable of detecting strong, transient radio signals from billions of stars. Although we are a very young technology in a very old galaxy, our radiation continues to outshine the Sun at many frequencies and we remain detectable to others. When our use of the spectrum becomes more efficient, it will be time to consider deliberate transmissions and the really tough questions: Who will speak for Earth? What will they say? Maybe by then we will be old enough to find some answers.

About the Lecturer: Dr. Tarter received her undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley. As a graduate student at Berkeley she became involved in a small commensal search for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations using the Hat Creek Observatory 85 foot telescope. That project, SERENDIP, underwent many stops, starts and overhauls (and is still ongoing), and provided a natural introduction to the newly formed Search for Extrater-restrial Intelligence (SETI). Dr. Tarter heads the SETI Management Group at the SETI Institute.

Thursday, March 15 7:30pm lecture
Dr. Keith Devlin — How Did Mathematical Ability Evolve?
Mathematics, as we generally understand it, is at most 5,000 years old. (Numbers are at most 10,000 years old.) That's too short a period for any major changes in the human brain. So, when we perform mathematically, we must be using mental capacities that evolved long before mathematics came along. What are those abilities and what survival advantages led to their finding their way into the human gene pool? And if everyone has these abilities - as an evolutionary account will imply - why do so many people find math impossibly hard?

About the lecturer: Dr. Keith Devlin is the Dean of the School of Science at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga, California, and a Senior Researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. He is the author of 22 books, one interactive book on CD-ROM and over 65 published research articles. You might recognize his voice as the Math Guy on NPR's popular Saturday morning radio magazine Weekend Edition. He also appears on various other NPR radio programs. He was the lead advisor on the PBS television series "Life by the Numbers," and wrote the official companion book for the series, published by John Wiley. His latest book, The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip, was published in August 2000 by Basic Books.

Thursday, April 19 7:30pm lecture
Dr. Alex Filippenko — The Runaway Universe
Recently, observations of very distant exploding stars have provided evidence that the expansion of the universe is speeding up with time, rather than slowing down as expected. This discovery resurrects the idea of a long-range "antigravity" effect in the universe, first proposed by Albert Einstein, which he later renounced as his "biggest blunder." Could his suggestion have been right after all? Come hear the latest evidence and ideas about this bizarre twist in cosmology.

About the lecturer: Alex Filippenko received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Caltech in 1984 and joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1986. His primary areas of research are exploding stars, active galaxies, black holes, and the expansion of the universe. He has won numerous awards for his teaching and research, most recently a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1998 he produced a 40-lecture video course on introductory astronomy with The Teaching Company.

Thursday, May 17 7:30pm lecture
Dr. Gibor Basri — The Origin of the Elements
You know that the atoms in your body were somewhere else before you owned them and have been on the Earth since it was formed. But where were they before that? Where, when, and how, were they made in the first place? The Universe did not begin with its current content. How did it get to be this way? Remarkably, modern astrophysics can answer these questions in amazing detail. Professor Basri will tell you the history of your atoms (and those in the lecture hall) at a popular level that you can understand without ever having taken a physics course. He will show pictures of current and past places where atoms are being forged, and how they end up on a place like Earth.

About the lecturer: Gibor Basri is a professor in the Astronomy Department of the University of California at Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His main research interests are in stellar activity, solar and low mass stars and brown dwarfs, and star formation. He is a regular user of the Lick and Keck Observatories and space-borne telescopes such as IUE and the Hubbell Space Telescope. Dr. Basri recently held a Miller Research Professorship at Berkeley. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the National Society of Black Physicists, the International Astronomical Union, and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

For more information call (510) 336-7300 or visit www.chabotspace.org

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