Bogdan Vacaliuc
The Wednesday meeting of ORION, an amateur science and astronomy club based in Oak Ridge, will feature Bogdan Vacaliuc of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a discussion of citizen science and radio astronomy.
The meeting starts at 7 p.m. Wednesday, November 16, at the historic Grove Theater at 123 Randolph Road in Oak Ridge.
ORION was founded in April 1974 by a group of scientists at the United States Department of Energy facility in Oak Ridge. Its purpose is to promote learning and inquiry throughout the cities of Oak Ridge and Knoxville, and the counties of Anderson, Knox, and Roane, a press release said.
The group meets monthly at the Grove Theater at 7 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month, starting with coffee and conversation with the program beginning 15 minutes thereafter. For directions, please visit the website at www.orioninc.org. Programs are free and open to the public.
Here’s an abstract for Vacaliuc’s discussion on Wednesday:
Because of the availability of two key technologies (widespread use of personal computer interfaces and the existence of interconnected computers that provide both computation and storage at modest cost), an unprecedented capability for scientific inquiry has emerged. Together with a resurgence of low-cost electronics development and the sharing of information by the maker community, a perfect storm of opportunity exists in which the efforts of an amateur scientist can make a significant contribution to the advance of knowledge and understanding of our physical world.
Focusing primarily on these opportunities with respect to radio astronomy, I will give a survey of citizen science efforts that have been undertaken in the past, the technologies that are enabling the efforts for the future, and a basis for the development of a scientific “instrument” on a previously unthought-of scale.
Here’s Vacaliuc’s biography:
Bogdan Vacaliuc holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering. His 22-year career spans across small and medium-sized companies building electronics, computing systems, and software for commercial, industrial, and military uses, with achievements in automated inspection, electrical fault detection, radar environment simulation, and high speed data aquisition. He currently serves the Spallation Neutron Source at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Bogdan lives with his wife and three children in Oak Ridge.
This press release was submitted by Jennifer Hartwig.
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