Radio Physics

The Aspen Center for Physics does a number of public outreach and engagement activities.

A new and quite interesting effort underway is Radio Physics, in collaboration with KDNK community radio.

The project links (visiting) physicists with local AP physics classes, who do a 30 minute group interview, live, on the topic du jour.
When available in person, the interview is preceded by a mini-physics cafe, where the whole class meets with the victim at a local coffee shop and gets to quiz them on pretty much anything.

And, of course, the whole thing is not just broadcast live, but archived for posterity on the innertoobz (see above).

This week the victim was me, the topic was Pulsars.

I met with Linda Flohr's advanced physics class from Glenwood Springs High, the glass is a topical seminar in science. The topics were everything from college applications to the nature of time.

We met for an hour at the Bonfire Cafe in Carbondale (excellent mocha btw), and had a good chat, I think, before Patty Fox and the student interviewers marched me down to the KDNK studios.

You can hear the results for yourselves...
I'm the one with the funny foreign accent.

It was fun. And hopefully useful.
I was actually late to Matthew Bailes "Diamond Planet" DeWolf public lecture because after the broadcast we continued talking, with a lot of followup questions by some very very sharp students.

This is a potentially useful form of engagement that might be duplicated eleswhere.