2/20/08 ... The
Capitola
Book Cafe hosted my second "Moon and a Mocha"
event on the night of the lunar eclipse. (Last total
lunar eclipse until 2010!) I told some of the lore
and science of eclipses, while in the sky behind me
the Earth's shadow blocked out the Moon. Even though
it was a cloudy night, the clouds were thin enough
that we could actually see the eclipse, even during
totality. Unfortunately, we could not see Saturn
because of the clouds. It would have been the only
chance this millennium to see Saturn and an eclipsed
Moon side by side.
1/7-10/08 ... I went
to the
Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego. One
highlight was an exceedingly cool animated film of
"Flatland," produced by Seth Caplan, directed by
Jeffrey Travis and Dano Johnson, and starring Martin
Sheen as Arthur Square. I have written an article
about this movie for
The Alcalde, the alumni magazine of the
University of Texas. (Caplan, Travis, and Johnson
all went to school there.) Also premiering at the
meetings were two films by director George Csicsery:
"Hard
Problems," a documentary about the U.S. team at
the 2006 International Math Olympiad, and
"Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem," a
documentary about the first woman president of the
American Mathematical Society.
11/26/07 ... The
Capitola Book Cafe hosted "Moon and a Mocha," a
community science event. I showed clips from the
episode of
"The Universe" that I appeared in, and talked
about some of the science that didn't get in the
show. As it turned out, the audience was much more
interested in hearing me talk about the Moon than
watching the DVD! After the talk was done, some
members of the
Santa
Cruz Astronomy Club set up telescopes and we
looked at the gibbous Moon and Mars, which was
extremely close to the Moon that night.
