Speaker – Page 26

Five Years on Ice

Ray Sundby

11 a.m., February 23, 2020

Humanist Community member Ray Sundby will discuss his experience during five years he spent with the US Antarctic Program and life in small research oriented communities in Antarctica during the cold dark winters.

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After the Forum, please join us for a lunch at 12:30pm. The lunch is complimentary for first-time visitors and students.

Five Years on Ice – Ray Sundby from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.

Impeaching a President

Leland Chan

11 a.m., February 9, 2020

You’ve heard the testimony and the evidence. You’ve heard the pundits. But what does the Constitution say? The answer is “not much”.

The framers subjected the President (and the VP and “all civil officers”) to impeachment, but they were short on details. Over the years the Supreme Court has filled in some gaps, as has Congress. What are “high crimes and misdemeanors”? Is it necessary as a condition of impeachment that the President has violated an existing law? Is the impeachment process intended to be “political”?

Most would say yes, but does that mean it should be “about politics”? Doesn’t impeachment undermine elections?

We will tackle these questions and more and, by the end of the presentation, we will get a better sense about how to answer them in a way that is consistent with our cherished traditions.

Our presenter Leland Chan is an attorney living in San Francisco and a professor of law.

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After the Forum, please join us for a lunch at 12:30pm. The lunch is complimentary for first-time visitors and students.

Impeaching a President – Leland Chan from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Conference (CSICon) Report

Matt Courtney

11 a.m., February 2, 2020

What is CSICon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSICon)? Where is CSICon? Why is CSICon? These questions and more will be answered by our very own Matt Courtney. He attended the 2019 CSICon in Las Vegas, and will report on what it was like to attend in person. He will also cover some of the history of CSICon, some of the fun things you can do in Las Vegas while not attending talks, and what to expect next year.

Matt Courtney is a HCSV member and volunteer.

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After the Forum, please join us for a lunch at 12:30pm. The lunch is complimentary for first-time visitors and students.

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Conference (CSICon) Report – Matt Courtney from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.

Climate Change: Science, Technology, Policy, and Politics

Dr. Sandeep Agarwal

11 a.m., January 26, 2020

Global greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to increase despite clear indications that the Earth may warm well beyond 2 deg C. In order to avoid extreme climate consequences, the present energy, industrial, and food production systems need to be decarbonized. Rapid growth of solar and wind, as well as falling prices of electric vehicles, shows that a world without fossil fuels is possible. This talk will focus on policies and technologies needed to achieve a net zero emissions world by 2050.

Our speaker, Dr. Sandeep Agarwal, works as a CTO of a solar startup. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two children. He moved to the US from India around two decades back.

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After the Forum, please join us for a lunch at 12:30pm. The lunch is complimentary for first-time visitors and students.

2020-01-26 Sandeep Agarwal from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.

Seeing the Invisible: Music, Art, and an Evolutionary Step

Claudio Pellegrini

11 a.m., January 19, 2020

In a 1954 paper “Galileo as a critic of the arts”, Erwin Panofsky wrote that the Florentine’s culture in which Galileo lived, his participation in the visual arts, literature and music communities that at the time made Florence a leading European intellectual center, nurtured his pioneering scientific work, an important step toward modern science and the exploration of the universe. Working with his father Vincenzio, part of the movement that revolutionized music and created opera at the end of the XVI century, the young Galileo was introduced to experimental studies of how the sound from a vibrating string depends on length, tension and mass. Following Panofsky we look at the similarity between Galileo’s scientific approach and his analysis and appreciation of art and literature and discuss how his knowledge of visual arts had a large impact on his observations of the Moon and Venus and the beginning of modern astronomy.

Our speaker, Claudio Pellegrini (born in Rome on May 9, 1935), is an Italian physicist known for his pioneering work on X-ray free electron lasers and collective effects in relativistic particle beams. In 1999, he received the International Free-Electron Laser (FEL) Prize for his work on X-ray free-electron lasers. In 2001, he received the Robert R. Wilson Prize of the American Physical Society. In 2014, he was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award by U.S. President Barack Obama with the citation “For pioneering research advancing understanding of relativistic electron beams and free-electron lasers, and for transformative discoveries profoundly impacting the successful development of the first hard x-ray free-electron laser, heralding a new era for science.” In 2017 he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.

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After the Forum, please join us for a lunch at 12:30pm. The lunch is complimentary for first-time visitors and students.

Seeing the Invisible: Music, Art, and an Evolutionary Step – Dr. Claudio Pellegrini from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.