by Prof. Harold A. Geller of GMU

As we approach summer, one constellation you won’t be seeing in the night sky, is the well known Orion. The brightest star in the constellation Orion is commonly known as Betelgeuse. Actually, all stars are so far away that they are observed by our telescopes as points of light, not an object with height or breadth. However, in 1998, the Hubble Space Telescope, above the atmospheric jitter and fuzziness, captured a picture of Betelgeuse for the first time by an individual telescope.

Now when I say that a star is very far away, I am talking in terms of how long it would take light to reach us if it left the star today. In the specific instance of Betelgeuse, it takes light about 643 years to reach the Earth once it leaves the surface of Betelgeuse. Actually, Betelgeuse, like all stars doesn’t really have a surface, it is a ball of hot gas, called a plasma, because its temperature is so high, all of its atoms have shed their electrons and so all you have is a bunch of charged atoms called ions and a sea of electrons. (more…)

TAEM- With the interest in discovering new worlds in space, and the possibility of making a manned mission to Mars in the very near future, The Arts and Entertainment Magazine has sought scientific professionals and educators to interview so that they can reveal the many aspects of making these discoveries for our student readers. One of the main topics on many of our reader’s minds is what can be expected to be found there and can effect the astronauts that may go to these worlds.

One expert that we have found is Dr. Lewis Dartnell of the University of Leicester, England. Dr. Dartnell, tell our student readers about your formal education and how it has helped you in your work.

LD- I’ve come from a life sciences background – I read Biology at Oxford University, before moving to University College London for a Masters-PhD programme in a department called CoMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics & Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology – a real mouthful of an acronym!). This is a phenomenal inter-disciplinary doctoral training centre where mathematicians, physicists, computer programmers, and biologists like myself are all shoved into a room for a year and told to teach each other the stuff they don’t know yet. That year was incredibly hard work, but really paid-off in giving me a very broad understanding of scientific research and what sort of techniques and analyses can be used. It was after this that I was able to start a PhD in astrobiology – the science concerned with the search for possible life beyond the Earth. (more…)

Dr. Constance E Walker of NOAO

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine is always expanding to provide stories and educational tools to all the college students who follow us. Our Science section has provided excellent educational references and informative interviews of college professors from around the world. We have also posted interviews from some very well known scientists to add to our educational information.

  We have recently had an interview with the director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at the Green Bank’s site in West Virginia, Dr. Karen O’Neil. The information gleamed from this was not only an educational tool for students, but for teachers and scientists as well. For that purpose we would now like to turn our attention to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory at Kitt Peak near Tucson Arizona.

   Dr. Constance E. Walker, from NOAO, was just the person that we needed to talk to. Dr. Walker is not only an astronomer but she is the driving force behind many light pollution education effort nationally and internationally, including the GLOBE at Night citizen science program. Dr. Walker, in order to bring out the importance of education for the field of astronomy, please tell our student readers of your own formal education.

CW- Hi! Nice to meet you. I hold bachelor’s in physics and astronomy from Smith College, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Arizona. (more…)

(Photos by Todd Goodrich)

  TAEM- With our Science section expanding so rapidly, The Arts and Entertainment Magazine , is constantly searching the great colleges that we are seen in to explore the many branches of science that they offer. Our student readers have shown a great interest in Marine Biology and Paleontology, and we are delighted to include a University that excels in both.

   Professor George D. Stanley, Jr., of the University of Montana teaches a course that involves the study of marine fossils found on the North American continent and the surrounding oceans as well as many locations throughout the world. Professor, please tell our student readership about your own formal education and what first interested you about this particular branch of the world of science.

GS-Well my field of science is paleontology, a subject I became fascinated with at the tender age of 10. As an avid fossil collector, I dreamed of one day being a world adventurer and paleontologist and somehow I have kept up with that dream. I received a BA from the University of Tennessee and my PhD at the University of Kansas.  Following my graduation, my education continued as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum where I developed a, exhibit hall of ancient life and made many valuable contacts for my career.  As a Fulbright Fellow in Erlangen, Germany, I studied corals and the limestone reefs in the Alps. I guess what drew me into the field of paleontology was gorgeous fossils, life and deep time. Paleontologists really are time travellers, reconstructing the ancient past by digging up fossilized life of the past. That’s awesome in any sense. (more…)

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine recently attended the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club February meeting that was held at George Mason University. The guest speaker for the evening was Andrea Jones from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

The program centered upon the latest achievement of NASA involving its newest robotic rover sent to the planet MARS.  The mission was established to run a number of experiments for possible future manned landings on the red planet. There have been a number of robotic instruments sent before, but none large enough to conduct the list of experiments needed to expand our current knowledge of the planet. (more…)

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine is constantly gathering the greatest scientific minds from around the world to interview so that all our student readers can learn from them. We are very happy to present Professor David Britton from the University of Glasgow, Scotland to readership. In case that you weren’t aware of the fact, our publisher’s father, and eight generations before him, were born in that fair city.

David, we are very proud to have you interview with us. Please tell our readers about your early education and how it prepared you for your future.

DB-  My father was a physicist (PhD from Oxford and then worked with Marconi) who became a teacher after he was badly injured in a car crash and spent a long time rehabilitating. Neither of my siblings showed inclinations to follow in his footsteps but it must have been a good part of the reason why I took physics at university. During the last year of my undergrad degree, I was vaguely wondering what to do next when I saw a poster for the University of Victoria in British Columbia. It was a spectacular aerial view with the university in the foreground, surrounded by forest, and then the eye was led across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the snowcapped Olympic Mountains in the background. On the spur-of-the-moment I applied and, to my astonishment, I was offered a funded place in graduate school there. I was hooked! At UVic I did an MSc in Nuclear Physics (a measurement of pionic atoms) and then a PhD in particle physics (looking at rare decays of the pion) at the TRIUMF facility located in Vancouver. However, there was one other key part of my early education that has had a big influence: I loved writing, though my spelling and handwriting were so awful that the teachers did not always reciprocate my enthusiasm! These days, I tell my students that their ideas are only as good as their ability to present them, and that writing and presentation skills are essential. I know it has been one of the things that has helped my career.   (more…)

TAEM- As  the Science Section ofour publication, The Arts and Entertainment Magazine, leaps forward we have been contacting many scientists and space programs from around the world to give our student readers the best available information toward their education. Germany’s DLR Space Administration, a member of the European Space Agency, was high on our list. Our magazine received a supportive ‘Yes’ from Germany, and Klaus Steinberg quickly responded to our request.

Klaus, you are responsible for the German part in the General Support Technology Program (GSTP). Tell us about your role in that and what the program’s aims are.

KS- Thank you for the opportunity to tell your readers a little bit about my work. To start, I would like to shortly comment on how Space research is organized at DLR. In principle, the German Aerospace Center DLR is organized like other space agencies as NASA, but there is one specialty. There are about 7,300 people working for DLR, but only about 200 of them are part of the space Agency, formally known as Space Administration. (more…)

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine is thrilled to interview Dr. Karen O’Neil of the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (or GBT). Our publisher had visited the facilities several years ago, and he posted his visit in another segment of the Science section of TAEM. The observatory is a much recommended site for those interested in astronomy and radio astronomy. Dr. O’Neil is the site Director and we are very excited to be able to tell her story.

Dr. O’Neil, Please tell our readers about your educational background and your interest in astronomy.

KO- I have always been fascinated with the why and how of most everything.  I was initially drawn to working in physics and mathematics as these subjects are the primary foundation for all scientific phenomena.  Yet the more I studied these two fields the more I realized my fascination was not with the details of how things work as the broader question of why the Universe looks, and behaves, as it does.  Telescope images of the planets and other galaxies are both beautiful and fascinating to me, leading me to wonder why. Why do galaxies have swirls and bubbles in their gas and dust?  How doe stars go supernovae?  Why does the sun flare?  And the more I learned about galaxies and stars the more the field of astrophysics fascinated me, drawing me in until I finally moved all my studies and subsequent research into the field of astrophysics. (more…)

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine recently expanded our coverage of subjects that would interest the many college students who read our publication. We have added a Science section for the interest of our readership and first embarked on this by posting exciting interviews with astronomers David Levy and David Brin. We then began posting interviews with distinguished professors from George Mason University in Virginia, and USC and UCLA universities in California. We plan many new and exciting science articles and interviews in the near future.

 We would now like to turn our attention to what has spiked such interest in science. In the past few years the study and findings in the realm of Astronomy began with the discovery of new worlds outside of our own solar system. These are referred to as Exoplanets. We also have discovered so many new findings in our own solar system that interest in this subject have far surpassed our quests for knowledge since man first landed on the surface of the moon.

 Many amateur and professional astronomers began to group together to share their knowledge and findings. There is no greater group than the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club (or NOVAC) for these gatherings. The club boasts of over 1,100 members, the largest club of it’s size in the world. A California based club comes in at a distant second place with just over 800 members. Leading NOVAC is the new club president Phil Wherry. Phil, how did the club begin ?

PW- The Northern Virginia Astronomy Club was organized in 1980, and it went through incorporation formalities in 1991. (more…)

TAEM- This past month our publisher, Joseph J. O’Donnell, has offered a challenge to science professionals and enthusiasts to offer advice and guidance to NASA. This came about when we discovered a statement in another media source that stated that the agency seemed to be ‘Lost in Space’. Apparently NASA stated that there were no set programs for future space exploration. George Mason University in Northern Virginia was the first college to rise to the occasion to offer those needed boosts to the space agency.

On the staff of the university we found Dr. Bob Weigel of the Department of Computational and Data Sciences. Dr. Weigel, please tell our readers about your educational training and how this led to the courses that you teach.

NB: I am with the School of Physics, Astronomy, and Computational Sciences (SPACS; [http://spacs.gmu.edu/]).  The Department of Computational and Data Sciences combined with the Department of Physics and Astronomy to form SPACS. (more…)

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine has the pleasure of introducing Professor Steven Furlanetto of UCLA to all of our student readers. Since the beginning of adding the ‘Science section’ to our magazine, we have been able to tap into the minds of the best experts for those science students who use our publication as a learning tool for their careers.

Steven, you presently teach both astronomy and Physics at UCLA. Please tell our student readers about your formal education.

SF- I received my undergraduate degree from Carleton College, a small liberal arts school in Northfield, MN. I majored in physics there, though I took the opportunity to take a broad range of courses. After that, I won a Churchill Scholarship to study theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge for one year, where I studied the “Part III Tripos” in mathematics. Then I moved to Harvard, where I received my Ph.D. (more…)

The Arts and Entertainment Magazine attended the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club’s meet at George mason University for their January meeting. Many of the club’s members were there, along with its new president, Phil Wherry and Vice-President Alexander Rogee. Representing GMU was Dr. Harold Geller, the university’s liaison.

NOVAC’s guest speaker for the event was Professor Gideon Bass who lectured on the topic of ‘Kepler Studies of Low-Mass Eclipsing Binaries’. This was of interest to many of the professional and amateur astronomers who attended the conference. You can find our interview with Professor Bass, and details about the subject, in the Science section of this month’s issue. (more…)

Professor Gideon Bass
Photo Credit: Larry Kravitz

     TAEM- This past month The Arts and Entertainment Magazine was fortunate to meet Professor Gideon Bass who was the guest speaker at the monthly meeting for the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. The meeting was held at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Professor, please tell our student readers about your educational background.

GB- Well, my undergraduate degree was in astronomy and computer science at Hampshire College, a small experimental liberal arts school in Western Massachusetts. After graduation, I went to San Diego State University where I got a Masters degree in astronomy. And now I am currently in my second year at George Mason University, getting a PhD in their physics program, with a concentration in astronomy.

TAEM- Please tell us about the courses that you teach at George Mason University and what made you interested in the subject of Astronomy.

GB- I actually teach at Northern Virginia Community College, at the Annandale Campus as an adjunct professor. I am teaching their entry level astronomy class, and to me teaching is one of the greatest parts of being an academic, you can make direct changes in other people’s lives. Teaching astronomy is a great opportunity to expose students to ideas about critical thinking, the scientific method, and introducing them to what we know about the nature of the universe itself. It’s great fun. (more…)

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment’ Magazine’s publisher, Joseph J. O’Donnell, issued a challenge in the December 15th issue of our publication to start a ‘grass roots movement’ to support NASA. This support is spreading over the academic world and its start has taken place in the George Mason University faculty and student body. The challenge has centered on not only on Support of NASA, but to give the agency ideas for space exploration for its future programs.

   Dr. Kirk Borne, of GMU, is a Data Scientist and Astrophysicist, and is one of the many professors from the school that has stepped forward to offer insights into what can be achieved. Professor Borne, please tell our readers about your educational training for your fields.

KB- My undergraduate B.S. degree was in Physics at Louisiana State University, with a lot of math and some astronomy.  My goal was to study astronomy in graduate school, so the math and physics coursework was essential.  I loved all of those topics, and astronomy gave me the opportunity to study them all. I went to graduate school at Caltech, receiving a PhD in astronomy in 1983. I studied under some of the great astronomers of that era. It was a fantastic experience. In the years since then, I worked on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope project for 10 years and at NASA’s Astronomy Data Center within the Space Science Data Operations Office at the Goddard Space Flight Center for another 10 years, and I have now been at George Mason University since 2003.  All of my research and my work experiences at NASA always involved working with scientific data – this led me to the field of Data Science, which is the application of data methods and algorithms to the study of any discipline. (more…)

Joe O’Donnell, Jr.

‘The Scientific Revolution’ was by no means a swift and radical change in thoughts pertaining to science. The name applies to a period lasting from the end of the Renaissance and continued through the 18th Century. The later period was referred to as ‘The Enlightenment’.

Although the exact dates are in dispute, there were many notable figures that contributed to it. Among these were Galen, Ptolemy, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The work contributed to it was no single science, but science as a whole. It included mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, medicine, and chemistry. From the theories expressed by those great men, mankind’s knowledge of science was born and the world was seen in a revolutionary new view. Religion, superstition, and fear were replaced by reason and knowledge. (more…)

This past month we interviewed Dr. Michael Summers from George Mason University located on the campus in Fairfax, Virginia. Our publisher also offered a challenge to the academic world to help support NASA after another media outlet stated that they seemed to be ‘Lost In Space’. This came about after a report stated that NASA has no set goals for future space exploration. George Mason University is the first college to answer the call !

Dr. Summers has a team put together and they are searching for Exoplanets. An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of 853 such planets (in 672 planetary systems, including 126 multiple planetary systems) have been identified as of December 1, 2012, all of them within the Milky Way galaxy. It is expected that there are many billions of planets in the Milky Way galaxy, not only occurring around stars but also as free-floating planetary-mass bodies The nearest known exoplanet is Alpha Centauri Bb. (more…)

Photo Credit: Dr. Clifford V. Johnson

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine has recently expanded to include a ‘Science section’ in our publication for all the students who follow us. We recently began by introducing schools on the East Coast and would now like to travel across country to California.

We’d like to introduce Dr. Clifford V. Johnson to all our readers. Dr. Johnson is an English theoretical physicist and professor at the University of Southern California. Clifford, please tell us of your educational background and the schools in England that you attended.

CVJ- Hi! For my undergraduate degree (BSc) I went to Imperial College, part of London University, in Central London. I did my PhD at Southampton University, in the South of England. (more…)

Prof. Mark Morris

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine had recently added a Science section to our publication to add to the subjects that interests many of the college students who follow our magazine. In addition to the articles produced from George Mason University, who became first to offer interviews and articles, we will present articles from USC and UCLA in this issue.

We are highly honored to present Dr. Mark R. Morris of UCLA to all our readers. Dr. Morris, please tell our readers about your educational background.

MRM- Hello, I’m happy to tell you and your readers about my work.  I was trained in physics through my PhD, first at the University of California at Riverside for my BA, and then at the University of Chicago.  Although I had a few courses in astrophysics, I learned most of what I know about astronomy “on the streets”, or simply by reading, or by being assigned to teach it.  (more…)

TAEM- We recently had the pleasure of a guided tour of the telescope observatory at George Mason University by Dr. Harold A. Geller, the observatory’s director. We decided to learn a little more about him and were astonished about what we uncovered. Harold, please shed some light on your educational background and its long standing connection with George Mason University.

HG- The academic path to my doctorate was anything but straight.  After obtaining a bachelor’s degree, I returned to academia as a graduate student at George Mason University (GMU).  At that time, GMU was a medium sized liberal arts commuter-type college.  Not having a graduate degree program in my discipline interest, I designed my own program through the university’s master’s program in interdisciplinary studies.  I completed my master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies in astronomy and informatics.  As I was working for a university consortium, I naturally maintained ties in higher education.  I applied for and received a Commonwealth Fellowship from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.  I initially sought to complete a PhD in Physical Sciences.  Ultimately, I switched to the doctoral program in education.  I also taught at the Northern Virginia Community College, Manassas Campus, for 4 years while I continued to work toward my doctorate in education.  Ultimately, I was offered a full time position at George Mason University, and chose to enter academia on a full-time basis.  I had been a part-time instructor in physics and astronomy for seven years prior to joining GMU as a full-time faculty member. (more…)