Jennifer Morgan: Cosmic Education Books & Programs

After giving a program to Education Department at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab last month, the discussion took a surprising turn. They were fascinated with the combination of art, photographs, story, and science writing in my books. It turned out that Jerry Ross, a member of the science education staff had recently won the "Art of Science" competition held at Princeton, a competition that selects images of beauty created in the course of scientific research. Dr. Andrew Zwicker, program head of the science education program speculated about how we now see the beauty and artistic value of scientific inquiry . . . is there a way to flip that, he pondered, and use art to help further scientific discovery? "Is there a way," he said, "to use art to see things differently?" What a fascinating conversation, one that I never expected inside a research facility such as the PPPL!