Dorky Poll: Just One Lecture

I unwisely agreed to cover the first class for one of my colleagues with a late-arriving flight back from break before finding out when the class met, which was 8:00 this morning. As a result, my whole morning blog routine was disrupted.

I'm saved from having the site go completely dark, though, by an email from a colleague who's teaching a course on science fiction, asking if I'd be interested in doing a guest lecture. I'm open to the idea, but I don't know what I would talk about. So, here are two Dorky Poll questions, one very specific:

1) If I were to do one guest lecture for a class on SF, what should I talk about?

and one more general:

2) If you had the chance to give one guest lecture to an audience of college students on any topic of your choosing, what would you talk about?

My answers:

1) I would probably lean toward either "portrayal of scientists in SF" or "New Space Opera" as a topic. It kind of depends on what they're reading for the class, though, and I didn't get to pick that.

2) Bose-Einstein Condensation. This is a bit of a cheat, as I have a "simulated lecture" that I do for a summer program for disadvantaged kids, so I already have the slides. (I also cribbed most of it from Bill Phillips's public talks...). It's a great topic, though, full of weird quantum stuff.

What would you talk about?

Tags

More like this

1) I'd pick a couple of my favourite sf books/authors and just talk about why they're my favourite. Memorable lectures are often driven by a subject the speaker is passionate about rather than the topic itself.

2) I'd talk about how scientists and scholars are using the free web and social software tools to communicate with each other and with the general public. But that's just me.

Re: (1), I gave a talk "Newton's Laws in Science Fiction Movies and TV" at Hypericon last year, and fantasize about taking it on the road to Dragoncon or some such. This lecture was tuned for the "science fiction fan" audience, but could be returned for a nonmajors introductory physics class easily, and would be fun to do.

Re: (2), I have a lot :) I've given other science lectures at Hypericon, and I used to be a Shapley lecturer for the American Astronomical Society, which always included at least one public outreach lecture. I've also in the past given talks at amateur astronomy society. Topics have included active galactic nuclei, galactic collisions, etc. My favorite one is probably all about the discovery of Dark Energy. However, if I had to pick just one I was going to give ever again, it would be a competition between that one, a lecture describing the basics of Special Relativity and showing how it leads to time dilation, or a lecture about the scientific process and the lack of a need for a conflict between science & religion *with* some caveats about how you approach your religion.

Oooh, how fun.

I don't know what you should lecture about to an SF class, but my first instinct is to do something on worldbuilding, incluing, and reader/genre expectations when it comes to exposition.

You are going to have a lot of fun with this. I once gave a talk to an urban Mennonite group about possible future technological dystopias and utopias. Using examples from popular movies I talked about the the likelihood of each related to current technological trends and upcoming developments. They knew most of the examples already so the scenarios were easy to describe. Lively discussion followed and and a bunch of people stayed overtime.

Black hole thermodynamics and its statistical origin in string theory. The beauty of it is that one doesn't need anything more than basic UG background in thermodynamics/stat. mech. This is great fun to give, usually is well received, and maybe with some luck one day it will be denounced as over-hyping...

1. I would pose the following question, which has lots of potential to stimulate discussion in a sci fi class. "Hey, that hot guy/gal across the room is making eyes at you. How do you know that they are not a replicant?" This was in fact a cruel required question in my sci-fi class's final exam. The best answer I got: "Do I care?"

2. Any topic, eh? Well, I would like to teach one class on the evidence against god at Oral Roberts, Liberty or Bob Jones University. But only if I get an armed guard.

HJ

When you say "I," do you mean I-me? Or I-you?

For I-me, it would probably be, subject to better ideas later:

1) Distinguishing fantasy from science fiction, despite the trappings (subtitle: Three times the information of a Brin rant, and only one tenth the acid and bile)

2) Something about the realities of large scale engineering as it is actually practiced, as opposed to fluff and bullshit they present in school.

By John Novak (not verified) on 07 Jan 2008 #permalink

1) My first thought (as a true non-expert in each field) was "Time Travel!!"

2) Probably how scientific literacy really can improve, enrich and inform the decisions we make (even the everyday ones).

A bit off subject, perhaps.I was once faculty advisor to a science fiction club which never really got off the ground. I had in mind a project for them to find science fiction stories dealing with human overpopulation, with the idea of trying to publish an anthology.

As far as an invited lecture; I'm happy to lecture on anything where I feel comprtent, and able to be appropriate to the audience.

By Jim Thomerson (not verified) on 07 Jan 2008 #permalink

Since I'm reading it now, I'd love to hear a lecture of Larry Niven's Ringworld. Trying to understand the scale, physics of it, how much energy it would take to create, how long it would take, and a bit of information on Dyson's Sphere. Not very creative I know.

Another idea might be to go over theoretical ways to download/upload information in ones brain. That is fairly common in Egan's stuff, and let's not forget Johnny Mnemonic.

Re 1: I'm a physics guy, like you, so this might seem odd, but what about less frequently used source material in science fiction? In other words, completely ignore your own area of expertise. Most sci-fi draws on physics (laser guns, time travel, space travel, robots, etc.), or biology (genetic engineering, alien flora and fauna, biometrics, sabremetrics), with a smattering of chemistry here and there. But the natural sciences aren't the only primary source for sci-fi.

The social sciences: Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) was inspired by military history and strategy, as well as, to some extent, theories of gifted education; Asimov's Foundations trilogy was based on a sophisticated future version of psychology (or rather, sociology, but I'm not sure the discpline existed at the time he wrote the series), of all things (and was also inspired by the history of Rome, specifically Gibbon's works); the novella "The Trap" aka "The First Men" (Howard Fast) was written in 1960 and was about developmental and education psychology -- IQ tests and potential in children.

Other possibilities: The Greening of Bed Stuy (Pohl) has to do with city planning and sustainable development, and the relationship between engineering, architecture, and social conditions in a city. It takes place in a Bronx- or Harlem-like area and is about one man's plan to improve the neighbourhood through cutting edge sustainable development (and this is decades old!). If I'm not getting it mixed up, "Request For Proposal" (Anthony R. Lewis) is also about city planning, bureaucracy, statistics, logistics, and politics, and how messed up and out-of-control things can get when a bureaucratic system has no room for common sense.

These are some examples that show that the genre can and does draw on a richer variety of material than the natural and Earth and space sciences, and their most direct applied science counterparts. Social sciences, and the meeting points of arts and science in such realms as city infrastructure and engineering, architecture, and urban renewal are also fair game, along with many other things that I probably haven't thought of.

Harrison Bergeron. 'nuff said.

By BikeMonkey (not verified) on 07 Jan 2008 #permalink

1) Either music in SF films, shamelessly cribbing the work of my friends, or exploring music as portrayed in SF books. I'm thinking about the composer in 2021, the music theorist in Hyperion (admittedly a minor character, the Wandering Jew's wife), and I'm sure I could quickly come up with more examples, with Worf singing Klingon opera as a big finish.

2) Musical timbre. What we know about it, what we don't know about it.