Once in a while I wish Davis, California was a litle closer to New York City. This week is one of those times.
If so, I could attend the World Science Festival. The aim of the festival is to “spark a movement in which science shifts from the cultural outskirts to the cultural center”. There you can:
see Alan Alda discuss the treasure trove of letters written by Albert Einstein,
meet Brian Greene, physicist, science writer and co-founder of the festival,
watch high school students interview Nobel Laureate physicist Leon Lederman and ground-breaking robotic engineer Cynthia Breazeal,
hear Science Friday’s Ira Flatow in conversation with leading cosmologists Lawrence Krauss, Paul Steinhardt, and Lyman Page, and historian of science,
listen to neurologist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks and NPR’s Robert Krulwich illuminate the often surprising relationship between vision and the brain and
hear Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse talk with geneticists Francis Collins and Jim Evans and renowned ethicists about how personal genomics will affect our lives.
To see Brian Greene on the Colbert Report and learn more about the festival see their blog.
If you were to set up such a festival in Boston, London or San francisco, who would you invite?
Wow, that does look like quite the carnival for science enthusiasts – hopefully this will catch on! I’d invite Neil Degrasse Tyson – the director of the Hayden Planetarium and one of the most engaging science communicators out there. Considering he’s based in New York, I’m pretty surprised by his absence. Steve Squyres, the head of the Mars Exploration Rovers, is a great speaker in charge of a very flashy scientific undertaking – he’s on my list as well.
Thanks for the great ideas Jeff. I am dreaming of putting together such a conference in California. Tyson and Squyres are now on the list!