|
Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Pub:
A night with Douglas Adams
Thursday May 6, 1999 Science in the PubTM moves to Newcastle for National Science Week! Funding through the Science and Technology Awareness Program has allowed us to stage sessions around Australia. Tonight’s session will take a broad look at the role of science in society. Although the science will be serious, there is sure to be lots of fun. On the panel we have Douglas Adams who, apart from his fame as author of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is ‘chief fantasist’ at The Digital Village, and Professor John O’Connor, Vice President of the Australian Institute of Physics from the University of Newcastle, NSW—with our scintillating Science in the Pub compere, Dr Paul Willis, ABC Radio science broadcaster ably assisted by Ms Bernie Hobbs, also from the ABC Science Unit. Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge, educated at Brentwood School, Essex and St John’s College, Cambridge. He is most famously known as the creator of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Having worked as a writer, producer and script editor for BBC Radio and TV, he originally wrote The Hitch Hiker’s Guide as a radio series, and subsequently transformed it into a series of best-selling novels, a TV series, several theatrical productions, a computer game and a bath towel. The motion picture is currently in development with Disney and will be launched for a Summer 2000 release. Douglas is ‘Chief Fantasist’ at The Digital Village and in April ’98, his company launched Starship Titanic, a critically acclaimed PC CD-ROM adventure game. The game is distributed worldwide and a Mac version is to be released. Other novels include Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. Non-fiction includes The Meaning of Liff (with John Lloyd), a dictionary of meanings for which there aren’t any words yet, Last Chance to See, a book about the search to find some of the world’s most endangered species. He has sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. He is also best seller in German, Swedish and other Nordic languages. He is a worst seller in France. He plays guitar in a variety of ad hoc bands along with novelist Ken Follett and others, and also recently made a guest appearance playing with Pink Floyd at Earl’s Court. He lectures regularly throughout the world about technology, the new media, and ecology. John O’Connor is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Newcastle with interests in squash and boomerang throwing. John’s career in science started when he received a National Undergraduate scholarship to study Maths and Science at ANU. He started out to be a Mathematician but lost his way and became a Physicist instead. After being awarded his PhD in 1979 he took up his first position as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sussex (1979-1981) after which he returned to a lecturing position at Newcastle. He has recently been awarded a DSc. His research interest is in Surface Science which entails studying the properties of the first few atomic layers of solids—because he believes that this is where all the real action is. John adds, "This does not stop the good-hearted jibes that we 'only scrape the surface' in our research!" John’s enjoyment of physics really commenced with a vacation job which involved getting the lecture demonstrations into order and catalogued at ANU. On this he says, "I cannot recall when I have had more fun or learnt more physics". This `order from chaos' enabled Mike Gore to lay the foundations for Questacon in Canberra. John was also an occasional roving scout on Mike Gore’s behalf, to science centres in Europe and North America. When John arrived in Newcastle he also participated in the establishment of Supernova which is Newcastle's hands-on science centre. John has always enjoyed the challenge of putting physics into a form that anyone can understand. This has lead to the development of a series of public shows that are presented as part of the University’s SMART program and to his weekly science talk back show on the local ABC radio with Lindy Burns. John offers, "In my view, it does not matter what career a person ends up in, they cannot avoid science. It is all around us, even if we exclude modern technology, science still affects our lives in so many ways that without an understanding of how the world works, we live unnecessarily in fear and are vulnerable to those that would prey on that fear. Besides that, approached the right way science can be so much fun! In the scheme of things, and with a Douglas Adams theme, I would like to think of myself as Ford Prefect, but feel that at times the universe thinks I am Arthur Dent!" and true to the tradition of Science in the Pub, John offers as his abstract the following verse with the comment, ``my apologies to my much loved poet and to everyone who recognises the origins of my verse''. He sent the demos flying and the audience kept their seats, He cleared the misconceptions in his stride, And the man from Newcastle never shifted in his stance It was grand to see that communicator ply. Through weightlessness and polarisation, on rainbows and radiation, Down the periodic table he did slide. And he never drew a diagram till he ended safe and sound At the bottom of the double helix ride.
|
||||||||
 Science
in the Pub™, © 2000. Stutchbury, R, Burton, M. |
|||||||||
