Jacynth's brainwashing
continues... as we attended a public lecture at Curtin University last Friday. We arrived early, so that we could choose a good seat - where we could have easy access to the exit in case Jacynth decides to call for attention...
Slowly, people started to trickle in...
The lecture was given by Prof. Lawrence Krauss from Arizona State University, one of the more well-known theoretical physicists/cosmologists around due to his frequent appearances on television documentaries and his popular science books ie. the Physics of Star Trek.
As Professor Krauss spoke, various methods were used to try to keep Jacynth quiet... at least for a while...
Kevin's colleagues playing their part as well...
her Glo-worm...
getting her to chomp on her teething rusk...
and then her teether...
And when nothing else could keep her occupied any longer, she finally managed to get the attention of everyone else in the room, including the speaker...
Lawrence Krauss: (describing the discovery of dark energy and how it solved the problem of the missing matter/energy required for a flat Universe)
Jacynth: (squeals in delight)
Lawrence Krauss: Yes, I know, it's really exciting!
Agnes then thought perhaps letting her crawl would do the job. That's when she climbed staircases for the first time - and she went all the way up! She did it a second time, all the way up again, after Agnes carried her down...
At the top of the stairs are corridors which she happily crawled around and picked dry leaves to put in her mouth!
Needless to say, she ended up sweating at the end of the extensive exercise. Since she was already in her pyjamas (hence the rolled up sleeves), the oversized pants protected them from getting dirty! :)
All in all, it was an engaging lecture, filled with great insights and lots of humour. You get a sense of why Lawrence Krauss is such a well known science communicator, and is able to explain very difficult concepts to a general audience - not that Jacynth know much about that though...
