Sunday, February 01, 2009

Is CafeSci for kids?

The last Cafe Scientifique I attended had a brain surgeon talk about the phenomenon of memory. Which was what I expected based on the other CafeScis I've read about online. This latest one had physics prof Ivan Culaba demonstrating how clouds are formed and how sunlight gets refracted to make the sky blue.

Which is all fine and dandy if, like 40% of the audience last Saturday, you were a kid.

But it's old hat for people like me who read science books and magazines and watch the Discovery channel for things other than big bikes. I was expecting something on stars and black holes. I wanted to ask an astrophysicist (or the closest thing we have) about dark matter and current theories in cosmology.

What I got was a series of (I admit, cool) demos that would've been great in physics class, but not for an afternoon soiree over coffee. Here's to hoping they get someone to talk about string theory next time.

3 comments:

Paul said...

Hello Patrick. This is an interesting blog. Dr. Alvin Culaba used to be my mentor and professor at DLSU-Manila.

lateralus said...

string theory! teehee

I knew it was going to be kiddie the moment I found out that it was at Lander and Hobbes. I wonder if the other CS events are as "kiddie".

missingpoints said...

Yeah. But there was free yogurt so pwede na rin. :) The one with the neurosurgeon last year was more "adult."

Next Saturday it's about pasta. I might go for the free food but I'm not too interested. :) I get enough food science from Alton Brown.