Title: The Real Unified Theory.
Source: Sky & Telescope, Sep2000, Vol. 100 Issue 3, p88, 2p, 1bw
Author(s): Levy, David H.
AN: 3360968
ISSN: 0037-6604
Note: Tucson-Pima Public Library subscribes to this magazine.
Database: MasterFILE Elite

Section: star trails

THE REAL UNIFIED THEORY

HOW MANY OF US STARTED OUT, eyes wide open to the stars, wanting to be
a professional astronomer, at the controls of some of the world's most
powerful telescopes? Chances are, if you've been a long-time reader of
Sky & Telescope, that dream has crossed your mind at some point. But
odds are also that your career ended up taking a radically different
path.

Many of us specialized too early, partly due to a perceived need to
get a good start with life -- enroll in a good university and move
into some narrow field directly toward a degree and a good-paying job.
In our practical world, that's probably good advice. But it means that
most of us can never follow our dreams. Not so in Southern Illinois
University at Carbondale's University Honors Program. Thanks largely
to its director, Frederick ("Rick") Williams, the program brings
together students with varied interests and gives them a chance to
pursue their dreams.

Rick Williams is not an astronomer in the classical sense. Born in
Denver, Colorado, in 1942, he grew up in the small town of Foxpark,
Wyoming. His grandfather, a schoolteacher, planted some basic
astronomical knowledge in the inquisitive youngster. "He showed me
that two of the stars in the Big Dipper's Bowl always point to the
North Star" Williams recalls. After graduating from high school he
attended the University of Wyoming for two years, where his first
interest was prelaw. Uncertain of his own career, Williams left school
after his sophomore year. He worked for a while stringing power lines
to the Minuteman missile silos that were springing up at many sites
around the country at the time.

"We spent a lot of time in places like Sundance, Wyoming, and
Scottsbluff, Nebraska," Williams remembers. "One of the instruments we
used then was a theodolite, and I discovered that if you took it out
on a clear night, it worked like a miniature telescope!" Its field of
view was a half degree, so the Moon fitted perfectly. Although the
theodolite gave fine views of the Moon, Williams was puzzled as to why
he couldn't lock the scope tightly enough; he thought it kept
slipping. "Dummy!" a coworker said. "It's the Moon that's moving, not
the telescope!"

A year later, having made enough money so he could fund his education,
Williams enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin. In order to
graduate, he would need to take an additional year of mathematics. But
the school offered an unusual choice -- students who didn't want the
extra math could take a year of classical Greek. "In my junior year I
signed up for Greek," says Williams, "and after six weeks I realized I
was in love with it" After graduating, Williams went on to the
University of Colorado at Boulder for his master's degree and then to
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he earned a Ph.D. in
classics in 1975. Two years later he began his career at Southern
Illinois University (SIU).

With his eclectic background, Williams was the ideal choice to head
the university's honors program. He became its director in 1987, the
same year he and his fiancee, Brigitte, an architect, were married.
"It is the aim of the honors programs" he said, "to try to shape the
student not just in one academic subject." But many universities
design their programs as a sort of shadow curriculum, so that a
physics department offers a standard course in physics, for example,
and a more advanced course in the honors program. SIU's program is
different. Any student with high academic grades (say, a 3.25 grade
point average) is welcome to join. "Membership is a pat on the back
for a job well done" Williams explains, "not a set of obstacles to be
overcome."

Over the last 12 years the honors program has developed 45 new
courses. An English course, called Art and Science in the Romantic
Period, explores a heightened interest in humanity's place in the
world and the universe. Philosophers like Pierre Simon de Laplace were
investigating new explanations of Nature. Ideas like Laplace's nebular
hypothesis, put forth in his Exposition du systeme du monde -- an
attempt to understand how the Earth and its neighboring planets were
formed -- were prevalent at the time. Thus, a course like this brings
together science, literature, and history.

The honors program has other benefits, one of which is a series of
breakfast seminars with visiting lecturers. It was at one such seminar
that I first met a sampling of SIU's 2,000 honors students -- students
who were learning the classics, modern languages, English literature,
and physics. The session was just between me and the students; no
faculty members were there to moderate or grade the discussion. Our
interaction lasted more than an hour, covering both the humanities and
the sciences. We talked about how Lucius Annaeus Seneca found time to
write one of the most important classical treatises on comets ever
composed when he was facing execution at the hands of the Roman
emperor Nero. Another student asked how comet impacts could have
affected the origin of life on Earth. When I explained how comets
deposited water and a rich assortment of organic compounds when they
collided with our planet, a third student made the connection between
chemistry and the evolution of amino acids and DNA. During the session
the students built a unifying academic force out of the various
branches of the arts and sciences. I left the session invigorated.

The students do not come unprepared for these seminars. Williams and
his associate director, Scott Furtwengler, meet with the students a
week before each event and provide them with background information.
The students arrive at the seminar ready for some good mental
exercise. "The seminar is for planting seeds" Williams concludes.
"There is no follow-up -- the follow-up is up to them."

How many of SIU's honors students will eventually become professional
astronomers? Probably very few. But thanks to this unique academic
program, students, faculty, and friends were subjected to a direct
lesson from the night sky. On the evening of November 16, 1996, more
than a hundred people gathered at the Touch of Nature park to observe
the Leonid meteors, then beginning to gather strength in anticipation
of the parent comet's return. The mostly overcast skies didn't prevent
us from sighting a few meteors, including a bolide that lit up the
clouds. But the night was an opportunity for much more than counting
meteors. There were discussions about comets, impacts, and history.

By dawn the next morning, those who survived the night and solved the
problems of science and the world were treated to a congratulatory
breakfast. Not all those students will get their hands on the world's
largest telescopes, but they did get a taste of what a university
could provide. A university education is like a window to the
universe. Looking out through this window they see the many aspects of
the world we live in and the beauty of the universe that surrounds it.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): The author and Rick Williams (back row, fourth
and ...

The author and Rick Williams (back row, fourth and third from left,
respectively) relax with Southern Illinois University students and
faculty after an all-night Leonid observing session in 1996.

   ~~~~~~~~   
By David H. Levy

Author DAVID LEVY is one of amateur astronomy's most famous
popularizers.
_________________

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Source: Sky & Telescope, Sep2000, Vol. 100 Issue 3, p88, 2p, 1bw.
Item Number: 3360968