Nobel winner Riccardo Giacconi to give Brickwedde Lecture

Riccardo Giacconi, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, will be the featured speaker at the Department of Physics and Astronomy's annual Brickwedde Lecture at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 9, in Schafler Auditorium of the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy on the Homewood campus.

Giacconi is president of Associated Universities Inc., which operates the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He also holds the position of research professor at Johns Hopkins.

In 2002, Giacconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for his "pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources." The title of his presentation on Tuesday will be "The Birth of X-ray Astronomy."

The Brickwedde Lectures were established by a contribution from Ferdinand G. Brickwedde and his wife, Langhorne Howard Brickwedde. Ferdinand Brickwedde, who died in 1989, was a physicist and Johns Hopkins alumnus. He was dean of the College of Chemistry and Physics at Pennsylvania State University from 1956 to 1963.

 

Trojka international film series returns to Homewood campus

After a year's hiatus, Trojka returns to the Homewood campus this month. The student-run international film series will kick off its season with the Zhang Zimou tale The Road Home, a movie centered on two youths living in a remote Chinese village during the nation's cultural revolution.

The viewing will take place at 8:45 p.m. on Thursday, March 11, in 3 Shaffer Hall. The movie is free to all faculty, staff and students with a J-Card.

The Trojka Movie Club aims to introduce films from various cultures to the Johns Hopkins community and to showcase the diversity of cinematic art around the world. The group is sponsored by the Graduate Representative Organization at Homewood and the Graduate Students Association on the medical campus.

The other movies in the 2004 season are Das Boot (Germany, 1981) on March 25, Y Tu Mama Tambien (Mexico, 2001) on April 1, Kandahar (Iran, 2001) on April 8, White (Poland, 1994) on April 22 and The Pillow Book (England, 1996) on May 6. All films will be shown at 8:45 p.m. in 3 Shaffer Hall.

 

Ink sandwiches? They're just one taste of physicist's offbeat science

Ink sandwiches will be on the menu at noon this Wednesday, March 10, when physicist and science writer Neil A. Downie perform experiments from his book Ink Sandwiches, Electric Worms and 37 Other Experiments for Saturday Science in Shriver Hall Auditorium on the Homewood campus.

Published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, the book provides offbeat science experiments that use high school-level mathematics to demonstrate basic physical principles. The experiments involve making a clock out of an ice cube, sending messages with bubbles and the chemistry of red-hot batteries and wet solar cells.

Downie is a lead scientist with Air Products and Chemicals and is also the author of Vacuum Bazookas, Electric Rainbow Jelly and 27 Other Saturday Science Projects.

This event is part of the Wednesday Noon Series presented by the university's Office of Special Events and is co-sponsored by JHU Press. Copies of Ink Sandwiches will be available for sale and signing. For more information, call Special Events at 443-287-9900.

 

John Brighton of NSF to give the Christie engineering lecture

John Brighton, the National Science Foundation's assistant director for engineering, will deliver the 21st Alexander Graham Christie Lecture at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 11, in 110 Hodson Hall. Brighton's lecture is titled "The Role of Engineering at NSF."

In April 2003, Brighton joined the NSF after a long career as dean of engineering, executive vice president and provost at Pennsylvania State University. Earlier, he had chaired the Mechanical Engineering departments at Georgia Tech and Michigan State University.

The lecture is named in honor of Christie, who in 1914 joined Hopkins' new Department of Mechanical Engineering as an associate professor. He was promoted to professor in 1920 and became chair of the department in 1921. An internationally recognized expert on steam power plants, Christie officially retired in 1948 but continued teaching until 1956.

The lecture is sponsored by the Johns Hopkins student chapter and the Baltimore section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

 

SAIS prof Brzezinski, Carter's national security adviser, to speak

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, will speak at SAIS at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 8. Brzezinski, currently a professor of American foreign policy at SAIS and counselor-in-residence at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, will speak about global power and U.S. foreign policy.

His new book, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, was released by Basic Books last month.

The lecture will be held in the Kenney Auditorium of the Nitze Building. Non-SAIS affiliates who want to attend should reserve a place by calling 202-663-5648 or e-mailing saispubaffairs@jhu.edu.

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