Katie Mack
Question for y’all:
If you go to a public talk about physics/astrophysics, what, to you, makes it a GOOD talk? What makes it an enjoyable experience? Are you going to learn physics? To be dazzled? To experience awe? To listen to someone smart say smart things? To be entertained? What’s most important to you?
Jock Rutherford 🌻
@AstroKatie
To learn physics.
Laurence Hart
@AstroKatie I want to learn something, get a sense of awe about the cosmos, and see the speaker exhibit excitement about the topic
Mark Connolly 🍻 🚴🏼♀️ (he, him, his)
@AstroKatie Way back in the before times, I used to go to PI for public talks. I went to learn something, as they were generally presented in an accessible way. And I would occasionally bring our kids, hoping to engage them in whatever the topic was. I have to say, though, that my favourite talk was by Roger Penrose, even though by about a third of the way in he had completely lost me. But he has a wizard with overhead transparencies and it was mesmerizing to watch.
Katie Mack
@uxmark That’s really interesting! I would generally say that a talk that loses the audience a third of the way in is a really bad talk, since it’s failing to be comprehensible to its audience.
Oliver Schönrock
These two...
Are you going to learn physics? To experience awe?
John Carlsen
For good #astronomy lectures aimed at general audiences, look at The Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series; see link to YouTube via
https://foothill.edu/astronomy/
(There I first attended a lecture on discovering exoplanets by Dr Geoff Marcy in 1996, which predated the series by a few years.)
For me, one thing that makes a lecture good is hearing what a speaker finds interesting about a subject.
Miss Megaphon
@AstroKatie all of the above!
But I also wanna know WHY.
Like, why do do you do that part of science? What is interesting about it, for you, for your field, for humankind? Why didn't/couldn't others study this before? What could it be used for?
Jon
@AstroKatie
To learn something completely unexpected.
Ken Disbrow
@AstroKatie minimally be informed or get a new perspective on a topic. Optimally, the above and be entertained.
Vincent Buller 🌻
@AstroKatie Awe would be the best fit - to get ripped from my tiny human day to day business and get a reminder of the bigger picture
Patricia H.
@AstroKatie I haven't been to such a talk in a very long time, but when I did, I thought I was going to be entertained, but found that it was the the dazzling awe that made it worthwhile
ednl 🇪🇺
@AstroKatie Learn about new developments on the frontiers of research in general terms without shying away from some fun maths.
Ole Dirty Rice
@AstroKatie I think in any scientific talk, it’s learning why the scientist is excited to be studying what they’re studying.
Angela
@AstroKatie human interest, linking it with context and a story. A bit of accessibility for those whose life hasn’t been focused on the particular topic being presented. To learn a couple of things I can remember afterwards.
Timmy O'Danaos
@AstroKatie Best is when you get to understand a whole new terrain. It doesn't even have to be a new discovery. I remember my first lesson about derivatives and me and my classmates were blown away
Katie Mack
@Nikolai_Kingsley Do they?
Rev.Dr. Nikolai Kingsley
hearing about something i didn't know before.
> yes, yes, EVERYBODY knows what an accretion disk is. get on with it
WTL
@AstroKatie That's tough. I like all of those things; here's my order:
Learning physics,
Listen to someone smart say smart things
Being dazzled / experiencing awe (same thing to me)
Be entertained
RobD
@AstroKatie I want to learn physics, and I am not afraid of a little math. Some of my favorite books are by Lisa Randall and Brian Greene. Usually, I am looking for a specific topic that interests me, though.
Wouter 🛰️
@AstroKatie 100% getting educated in an understandable way. Most important is the speakers enthusiasm & knowledge. Also, I tend to really like dynamic talks where questions can be asked during the talk and the talk itself can be adjusted to the audience on-the-fly.
I try to do that myself when speaking and feedback generally is very positive about that. On the downside I sometimes drift too much from the path and make it a bit confusing.
Dervish
@AstroKatie That becomes 'what will make me go to a lecture and enjoy it' - given my personal nature as an introvert who feels unwelcome in crowds. Learning something new would probably get me there. A little awe is great, but I love seeing the details, too: the tools used, how hard people worked, and so on.
vinraith
@AstroKatie This is a really great question and, as someone that gives occasional public astro talks, I'm really enjoying the answers. Thanks for putting this out there, Katie!
Tejaswini Mishra
@AstroKatie to experience awe, and to truly understand in a way that can be easily communicated to others. Bonus points if I learned the historical context of the discoveries, how they compare to what we already knew and how much has our knowledge advanced, and if applicable, what advances in technology made these new discoveries possible in ways that hadn't been possible before. Katie Bouman's talk at Stanford on capturing the first-ever image of a black hole hit all of these checkboxes for me.
danapriesing
@AstroKatie personally, for me the most important thing would be that the speaker make it understandable. Not so easy with physics perhaps. Astrophysics, well, there are stars and nebula and such that the audience can keep in mind while the speaker talks. Could make it a little easier.
MarcinW 🖥️🚀
@AstroKatie Nothing from what you have listed, I would say. Be a good speaker. Sorry, it can sound stupid, but some people just got the skill to make it either fun or interesting, or both. Ultimately, that's what pins me to the chair/screen. The topic doesn't matter all that much, with a skilled-enough speaker even incomprehensible subject will be great to learn about.
Kelly Guimont
@AstroKatie I want excitement. I have talked/listened to a lot of people in my life in different capacities and the ones who stick with me are the ones who GAF about what they're telling me. And I don't need to understand it as much as I need to know why this is a thing someone is telling me. Because it's brand new or will change what everyone knows about $THING or whatever, what made this the topic that got picked?
Troyce
@AstroKatie I like a talk that's informative, witty, and explains something in astrophysics I don't know much about. Dumbed down is good. I saw Stephen Hawking speak here twice, and the long pauses for him to load the next sentence was very helpful in giving us time to think about what he just said. So don't go too fast. And while it probably makes you scream in frustation, no math! ;)
@CharleneTeglia
@AstroKatie I would go to hear the speech version of The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. That sort of making concepts accessible for somebody who isn't a physicist.
Puppies&Politics
@AstroKatie the most important thing to me is to catch a little of their excitement about the topic.
Ben Rush
@AstroKatie @marthawells Enthusiasm for and accessibility of the presentations’s content. That's what I love to hear. I’ve been to scicomm, history, and tech conferences over the years. The talks that made the greatest impressions on me are those delivered by speakers who show their love for their subject matter and put the effort into making their talk accessible to as many as possible, regardless of the audience's experience in the field.
12tone
@AstroKatie For public talks (on basically any subject) the #1 thing I'm looking for is the speaker's passion and excitement for the topic. This often goes hand-in-hand with learning new things, because people who are deeply passionate about things often bring compelling insights, but a good speaker is one who makes me care, and that almost always starts with showing me why *they* care.
The Geoff
@AstroKatie Ideally, to find some little nugget I don't know and find fascinating, in the worthy but established "astro outreach" lecture. Either new results a la JWST or, to steal an example from you, the angular diameter turnaround.
RetRead Podcast
@AstroKatie I gotta get that one cool factoid I didn't hear before, or at the very least have that factoid presented from a unique point of view I didn't previously consider.
Nina
@AstroKatie All the aspects you have listed, but mostly to learn. @profbriancox visited Finland on his Horizons tour a bit over a week ago and his "too expensive to be a lecture, despite the laser pointer" contained everything you listed. Such an enjoyable evening.
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