Public Radio Host John Lienhard to Give Talk at Brookhaven Lab, 7/12

June 11, 2004

Upton, NY - John Lienhard, public radio host, will give a talk titled "Eye of the Forehead and Eye of the Mind: How Engineers and Scientists See," at the U.S. Department of Energy_s Brookhaven National Laboratory on Monday, July 12, at noon in the Laboratory_s Berkner Hall. The free lecture is open to the public. All visitors to the Laboratory age 16 and over must bring a photo ID.

Picture of John Lienhard

John Lienhard

Lienhard contends that spatial visualization is the subtlest of abilities. In his talk, he will trace its evolution and texture through the past five centuries and will explain an unanticipated phenomenon that he discovered: As remarkable aids to seeing - all the way from mechanical perspective to magnetic resonance imaging - have been developed, they may have been placing mental visualization under threat.

John Lienhard received a B.S. degree in 1951 and went on to receive M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. He has held faculty positions at several universities, where he has worked in the area of thermal and fluid systems. Since 1980, he has been on the faculty of the University of Houston, and, since 1989, he has been the M.D. Anderson Professor of both mechanical engineering and history there.

Lienhard is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Since 1988, he has written and hosted nearly 2,000 episodes of "The Engines of Our Ingenuity," a program heard nationally on public radio in the U.S. and occasionally in Great Britain. Using the medium of history, the program celebrates creativity and invention and shows how they shape culture and technology.

For more information about the lecture, call (631) 344-2345. The Laboratory is located on William Floyd Parkway (County Road 46), one-and-a-half miles north of Exit 68 of the Long Island Expressway.

2004-10191  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom