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Best-Selling Science Author Dava Sobel Will Discuss the Mysteries of Light at Ithaca College

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ITHACA, NY—Sunshine—one color or many? Pluto—a trick of the light or a real planet? Dava Sobel—international best-selling author of “Longitude,” “Galileo’s Daughter” and “The Planets”—will discuss the human race’s age-old fascination with light at Ithaca College on Tuesday, Oct. 10. Her talk, “A Brief History of Light,” will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Hockett Family Recital Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music. The event is free and open to the public.

Throughout history, Sobel said, breakthrough discoveries about light by Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and other visionaries have inspired new insights into the fundamental structure of the world. That process, Sobel said, is most recently reflected in the controversy over the planetary status of Pluto.

“Pluto was merely a dot of light in a telescope image when it was discovered in 1930,” Sobel said. “That was part of the problem. The brightness of the dot led people to believe the body was much bigger than it actually turned out to be.”

Pluto made headlines last summer when Sobel and six other members of the Planet Definition Committee were charged by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the word planet and also to consider the status of Pluto.

“The full IAU membership changed our definition by adding a third criterion, and it was that third element regarding orbital companions that ruled out Pluto,” Sobel said. “A lot of astronomers are unhappy with the new definition, and the issue is far from settled.”

An internationally known science writer with Ithaca connections, Sobel has worked as a media relations officer at Ithaca College as well as a science writer in the Cornell News Bureau. Her 1995 book “Longitude” was an international best seller that was translated into 20 languages. The book also inspired a PBS special, “Lost at Sea: The Search for Longitude,” which originally aired in 1998. In praising “Galileo’s Daughter” as “a simple tale, brilliantly told,” the Washington Post pinpointed Sobel’s ability to take technical subject material and present it as compelling, thoughtful narratives.

Dava Sobel has set aside a limited time for telephone interviews before her Ithaca visit. She will also be available to the media in Ithaca on Tuesday, Oct. 10, from 10 to 10:45 a.m. For more information, contact Keith Davis, assistant director of media relations, at (607) 274-1153 or kdavis@ithaca.edu.

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Contact: Keith Davis
Office: (607) 274-1440
mforrest@ithaca.edu
Reference: 187

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Michael Ludgate - forum administrator
The Canaan Institute http://www.canaaninstitute.org/

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