Join a ranger-guided tour of the Bay Model, a 1.5 acre hydraulic model of San Francisco Bay and Delta. Discover the stories of the two major operations that took place at this location between 1942 – 2000.

For more information visit http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/bmvc/.

In 1962 the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (now the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) began with the Congressional authorization of its two-mile long linear accelerator, the first $100 million science project. The science mission was the study of the interaction of high-energy electron with matter, a study that had brought Robert Hofstadter his 1961 Nobel Prize for his work at the much smaller linear accelerator at the Hanson lab on the main Stanford Campus. The first beam was delivered in 1966, a remarkably short construction time for such a large project. The era of what is called High Energy Physics had begun at Stanford.

A combination of advances in accelerators, detectors, and scientific breadth has kept SLAC at the frontier of science ever since, though the areas of research have changed greatly now including chemistry, materials, biology, cosmology, and many other sciences as well as the original high energy physics. Four Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work at SLAC and today it is generally regarded as the world’s leading laboratory for photon science because of it X-ray laser. Professor Richter will discuss both the science and technology evolution that made all this possible.  Panofsky Auditorium.

For more information, email farah.rahbar@SLAC.Stanford.edu

RSVP to stanfordhist@stanford.edu or 650.725.3332

http://m.stanford.edu/events/e/?i=30725

The Golden Ratio dates back to 300 B.C. (even earlier according to some sources). It occurs in art, architecture, and nature. This talk will focus on the history of the number and its many uses. The mathematics will be accessible to any level.

Speaker: Jeff O’Connell, Mathematics faculty, Ohlone College

For more information email rquinta@ohlone.edu or call (510) 659-6000.

http://www.ohlone.edu/instr/sciencetechnology/scienceseminars.html

Legendary historian and philosopher of science George Dyson vividly re-creates the scenes of focused experimentation, incredible mathematical insight, and pure creative genius. In the 1940s and ’50s, a group of eccentric geniuses — led by John von Neumann — gathered at the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.  Their joint project was the realization of the theoretical universal machine, an idea that had been put forth by mathematician Alan Turing.  This group of brilliant engineers worked in isolation, almost entirely independent from the industry and the traditional academic community.  Because they relied exclusively on government funding, the government wanted its share of the results:  the computer that they built also led directly to the hydrogen bomb.  George Dyson has uncovered a wealth of new material about this project, and in bringing the story of these men and women and their ideas to life, he shows how the crucial advancements that dominated twentieth-century technology emerged from one computer in one laboratory, where the digital universe as we know it was born.  Join John Hollar for a captivating conversation with Dyson about John von Neumann and the beginnings of the digital universe.

Preregistration required: http://www.computerhistory.org/events/.