Anyone who was at a loose end in Edinburgh tomorrow evening could come and hear me give a talk called Nanotechnology – Soft Machines, as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival.
I would also have liked to have said that anyone turning up would have had the opportunity to buy a signed copy of my book, Soft Machines: nanotechnology and life, but I got a somewhat sheepish email from my publisher confessing that they had run out of stock. Still, it’s not all bad news, in that the paperback version of the book will be out in October.
I may have accidentally started a rumour that your book has sold 200,000 copies – perhaps they sold out in the resulting clamour!
As soon as I get a c/c I’ll pick up a copy on Ebay. Who was gonna sign the book?
Special Request – Unfortunately our Transporter Beam os not working as it should so we cannot gatecrash the already full event. Mind you one of the crew is working on Mathematical Algorythms for a Cloaking Device with thre core generously provided by the University of Edinburgh.
Levity aside, I have a request for transcripts of your talk if they are available.
So how was it?
What was the audience like?
HOw did they take your talk?
The talk went well, thank you. A big lecture theatre, not quite full, but they laughed at my jokes and asked very pertinent questions. There was a nice dinner after, with some of Edinburgh’s great and good, as well.
AHhh, the dinner afterwards. POssibly the real reason some people do these things…
But I am curious as to the composition of the audience, following on the who is interested in science and how is it to be communicated to them kind of trail. Were they old/ young, ask sensible questions, or just sit there and be lectured at?
It’s difficult of course to judge the demographics of an audience just by looking at them staring down at you, but my impression, especially judging by the questions, was that many of them were professionals, quite a lot probably with some kind of at least degree level technical background.
There was one really nice touch… of course, I had said a lot about the importance of Brownian motion, and one man from the audience came and introduced himself at the end as the great great grandson of its discover, the botanist Robert Brown, who of course came from Edinburgh himself.
That is nice when a descendant of someone whose work you mention comes forwards.
I suppose I am not too surprised to find that the audience gave the impression of being more professional and technical. The difficult bit is in getting things across to non-technical people, although I suppose you have a few years to work at that yet.