FOEP at the March Meeting 2017

Public Physics Lecture at March Meeting in New Orleans

Starting in 2010 at the Portland, Oregon March meeting, Ivan Schuller, Brian Schwarz, and I have organized a public lecture titled “The Physics Of Superheroes” by Jim Kakalios, author of the book by the same name, for the general public at the March meetings. These public lectures have been supported by DMP and DCMP every year since then. The motivation is to increase the general public’s awareness of the very positive impact of condensed matter and materials physics research on their daily lives. The talks are well attended and Jim does an excellent job of connecting to the research being reported at the March meeting with the world of science fiction. For example he calculates the force Spiderman’s silk fibers must supply stopping the elevated train in the movie, and describes how it is consistent with the strength of actual spider silk. He then compares it to steel and concludes a steel cable the same diameter would break. He then explains to the audience a cable made of carbon nanotubes could be much smaller and still stop the el and that scientists at the March meeting were performing research to make carbon ropes a reality.

At the meeting in New Orleans we organized three public lectures for Jim’s presentation. One at LSU in Baton Rouge, one at Tulane in New Orleans, and the third at the March meeting on Wednesday evening. As is always the case the audiences were great and truly enjoyed Jim’s unique humor and entertaining talk. Each talk was followed by lots of questions from the audience. This year’s attendance was over 700 and we have already received a promise of support next year in Los Angeles by DMP and DCMP.

Contributed by: E. Dan Dahlberg

Double your exposure by giving an outreach talk in addition to your science talk!

The Forum for Outreach and Engaging the Public will have contributed talk sessions at the March and April meetings. Importantly, these talks do not count against you, so you can still submit a scientific presentation. We look forward to hearing about your work!