Non-Elite Astronomy
Notation: A = Amara F = Fiorella [ ] = extra comments by Amara
A: You taught for 3 years in Italy and, meanwhile, had established yourself as a recording artist, and so you came to the US that way. Did you find that, when you were still in that academic environment, that it was too restrictive for you? For example, if you were teaching in America instead of teaching in Italy, would you still have found the academic environment too restrictive for you to promote science in the way that you wanted?
F: I think that certainly it would have been better for me to teach in America than in Italy. America has great advantages: better technology with which to teach, easy access to libraries, Internet, multimedia. In Italy, they are still having some trouble getting on Internet, for example. Email doesn't work. BUT what I don't like about [all] these academic environments is that they are too elite for my tastes. Not many people can come and see what it's like in a University. I want people to come into the laboratory and see what's going on. I want them to hear these radio astronomical sounds. I want them to own my research! One of my goals is to turn the music from "Music from the Galaxies" into public domain. Because I want people to sample, play, use whatever they want from these sounds. Most of the time the academic environment is very elite. You need someone to get you in and see what's going on inside the walls. I don't like that elitism. I love people. I want to reach millions of people. I want them to enjoy the science that's going on. It would be a pleasure to see the Nobel Prize given like a Grammy or an Emmy Award. Because if you think about it, the scientists are the ones that are building our society, they are the driving force. Without the scientists, we wouldn't have the computer, the tape recorder, the shoes we are wearing, all of these things we see here in this room. But why does science have to be so 'nerdy'? In the past, science wasn't done this way. Think about Leonardo de Vinci, Galileo, the poetry, the emotions that work from those two evoked. Science was an everyday part of life, part of everyone's experience. It was more philosophical. We are losing the philosophy. There was humor and irony. Most of the time science is very fun and very sexy too.
A: It seems like with science and philosophy, if one has these areas as part of one's everyday experience, one becomes a much more rounded and educated person. One see things in a different perspective and understands more. I think that your method of bringing science to 'millions' in this popular way is really great because alot of this information wouldn't very easily make it out of the universities and research labs currently.
F: If you use the normal way, like say using Carl Sagan, I think that that teaching method loses the poetry. My Invisible Universe CD-ROM was very much driven by the idea of having people just look at the beautiful universe. See a galaxy, full of stars, with the dust and gas. And have them notice some strange things on the screen, hear the music, sense the ethereal wonder of it. And see some cosmic event on the screen, and THEN, when they are caught up in the emotion of it all, ask "What's that object?" Then you've grabbed them. They have the interest and the excitement, and I can give them the information. That's where the learning starts. The CD-ROM gives unlimited information, explanatory text, history, numerical data, a guided information tour. But you have to first ask the question: "What's that object?" You have to do that by watching the beauty of the universe, listening to the melody, or maybe by reading Shakespeare and Blake. Hear Herbie Hancock, the musician, talk about space. And then, if he is saying something about 'dust,' you think: "what's dust?" Then I can give them all of the information that they want. That really is the way I started to be a scientist, that is, by asking myself, "what's out there?" It was not by reading a book or by listening to a professor tell me what a star is and pointing to pages in a text. For me it was a spontaneous process arising simply by asking what that object is. Why is it shining?
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