Proceedings of the 5th Annual Conference on Inspiration in Astronomical Phenomena,
Adler Planetarium, Chicago, IL, July 2005 (2007, in press).
At the very beginning of the space age, over fifty years ago, the American illustrator Chesley Bonestell
portrayed planets, stars, and spacecraft with stunning, near-photographic realism. Collaborating with
experts like rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun, Bonestell's renditions combined the best scientific and
engineering knowledge of the time, and scientific exactness, with artistic imagination...
The-Scientist.com, 21 July 2006.
...I'm a physicist by trade, but I've always had a passion for science in the movies.
For the past year I've been putting the finishing touches on a book about science and scientists
on film. In the process, I've had the enviable job of soaking up literally hundreds of hours of
DVDs of science films of all varieties -- from biopics to B-movies and blockbusters.
That's a lot of popcorn...
Physics World, July 2006, 18-23.
...I have always wanted to be a physicist, but little did I know what a glamorous and
exciting profession I was entering. If the movies are to be believed, my fellow
physicists are not just smart people. They are also courageous, often saving the
world even at grave personal risk; generous, freely giving their valuable research
results to humanity; and handsome or beautiful to boot...
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2005.
Physics World, November 2005, 43.
...I will name three books that are excellent in terms of writing or content
or both, and that have a special meaning to me because they helped me to
develop as a science writer...
Physics World, November 2004, 16-17.
...Ham and eggs belong together, no question; and so, with equal assurance,
do yin and yang or law and order. But when it comes to pairing science with art,
things have become more tricky since Leonardo da Vinci embodied both...
Physics World, December 2002, 37.
...As the physicist Len Fisher points out in How to Dunk a Doughnut, the heavy weaponry that the physical sciences have developed to attack complex questions can be aimed at smaller targets as well. Other subjects tackled by Fisher include applying the fine art of mathematical approximation to shopping lists, soap foam, cooking the perfect roast, tossing a boomerang and the "physics of sex." Sidney Perkowitz is Charles Howard Candler professor of physics at Emory University in ...