Nobel Prize Winner To Speak On “Information Science” At UCSC

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Technology and information are flooding society, bringing both power and problems. Much of today’s technology is at odds with its human users, nature, and itself. Even so, dramatic changes in the way people work are just around the corner. For instance, paperwork as we know it seems doomed to become obsolete. This may free people to work in areas that benefit society instead of bureaucracies–but only if we prepare for this transition and manage it wisely.

Those are the views of Nobel laureate Arno Penzias, who will discuss his thoughts during an upcoming public lecture at UC Santa Cruz. The lecture, titled "Information Science and Its Effects on Society," will begin at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 14, in the Kresge Town Hall at UCSC. Admission is free.

Penzias is vice president of research at ATT Bell Laboratories, one of the nation’s leading corporate research centers. His 33-year career at Bell Labs has spanned astrophysics, radio communications, and information systems. Penzias shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering a faint trace of warmth that pervades the universe–strong evidence that the universe arose from a cataclysmic explosion called the Big Bang. In 1989, he published the celebrated book "Ideas and Information: Managing in a High-Tech World."

The Department of Physics at UCSC is sponsoring Penzias’s visit. His talk is part of the ongoing Delphasus Lecture Series, funded by a private gift to UCSC to increase public appreciation of issues in astronomy and physics.

For more information, call the UCSC Public Information Office at 459-2495.