It was a very nice talk today at USC. I have seen you on the Metro Bus on a few occasions (I take it everyday) :). You are a great role model and I keep telling everyone I know about the viability of taking public transport in L. A ( I cite your example freely to try and inspire and I hope you don’t mind!). Your observation that scientists should not be stereotyped as “socially awkward” or one of those fringe behavioral groups is very astute and I’d like to add that this responsibility lies primarily with us ( I’m a graduate student in the Chemistry Department).

To teaching and spreading knowledge all around !

Best wishes.
Arun.

Thanks for coming! I’ll post the text of my entire talk up here shortly, and will copy your comment there for future readers, if that’s ok. Also, don’t hesitate to point people my way for more reading suggestions…. and maybe even to this and the forthcoming blog post.

Thanks again for all the great suggestions in your comment above.

Best,

-cvj

Access-Participation-Reflection seem points in a cyclical process to me; not sure if you said that explicitly, but I liked the points and they worked well as one of your organizing devices, as did of course the garden metaphors!

I was pleased that someone at the lecture asked about how lay people/adults can learn about science, and pleased that one of the resources you mentioned was books and libraries! Muchas gracias for the plug, professor!! Also great that you mentioned biographies - more on that in a minute.

But first I want to note that at USC, most of the history, philosophy and biography of science books are in the Doheny Memorial Library, not in my home base the Science & Engineering Library. Personally I READ those DML-housed science books more than those in S&E, but AM also comfortable with them being there, and thus somewhat more broadly, or centrally accessible. We get lots of these sort of titles, and all the new ones are in the “intellectual commons” nice reading room on DML’s 2nd floor. Our S&E collection is more strictly defined as resources for working scientists and engineers and students thereof.

For readers’ benefit, USC, and most academic libraries in N. America, use the Library of Congress classification system for call numbers. That means the science books mainly have call #s on the spines that start with Q…. Also, most physics texts are in QC.

Re biographies - yes! These can be a great way to learn about the doing of science for nonscientists like myself. Two of my favorite texts are probably more properly called simply history, but they go into the lives and characters of the scientists covered, and I really like and learn from that personal touch.

The first one has LONG been a fave: _The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics_. by Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann.

The second one I am currently finishing, and it is not quite as good as Crease and Mann, but the author DOES cover MORE of a span of physics history: _From Clockwork to Crapshoot: A History of Physics_ by Roger Newton. (I have checked out USC’s DML copy, so it is not available just yet!)

Thanks for all you do for science literacy!!