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Physicist Cliff Will to Explain Einstein's Theories in Embry-Riddle Talk

Dr. Cliff Will Daytona Beach, Fla., Feb. 22, 2006 -- Noted physicist Dr. Cliff Will will present a lecture titled “Was Einstein Right?” on Saturday, March 11, at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The event is free and open to the public and will be held at 8 p.m. in the Miller Instructional Center auditorium.

“Cliff is a world-class scientist who has also made significant contributions to conveying the excitement of science to the general public,” says Dr. Chris Vuille, coordinator of the event and an Embry-Riddle physics professor. “During his lecture he’ll display his ability to make deep scientific ideas intelligible when he discusses the important role relativity plays in our daily lives.”

The presentation is based on Dr. Will’s popular book Was Einstein Right?, which received the 1987 Science Writing Award of the American Institute of Physics and was also selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 200 best books of 1986. It has been translated into 10 languages.

“In my talk, I’ll examine whether Einstein’s theory of relativity, the most celebrated scientific theory of the 20th century, has held up under the scrutiny of planetary probes, radio telescopes, and atomic clocks,” Dr. Will says. “A revolution in astronomy and technology led to a renaissance of general relativity in the 1960s and to a systematic program to try to verify its predictions.”

He’ll cover the history of the testing of relativity, from the 1919 measurements of the bending of light, to the 1980s measurements of a decaying double-neutron-star system that reveal the action of gravity waves, to a 2004 space experiment that assessed whether spacetime “does the twist.”

Dr. Will is the James S. McDonnell Professor of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is president of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation. Among his numerous publications is the highly acclaimed book, Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics.

The lecture is sponsored by Embry-Riddle’s College of Arts and Sciences, its Physical Sciences Department, and Thomson Publishing. It commemorates Dr. Fred Elston, a much-beloved professor in the Physical Sciences Department who died a few years ago.

For more information, contact Dr. Chris Vuille at (386) 226-6724 or vuille@erau.edu.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering. Embry-Riddle educates more than 32,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through the Extended Campus at more than 130 centers in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Middle East, and through distance learning.