Chemistry Matters
03/09/08
In the final Distinguished Communicator Lecture for 2008, Associate Professor Allan Blackman wowed an audience in the St David Lecture Theatre, proving both that chemistry could be interesting and that we really should care about it. Based loosely on his column in the Otago Daily Times, Allan covered a broad spectrum of issues. These ranged from New Zealand’s Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, McDiarmid and Rutherford, to how we can make chemistry sexy.
At one stage, he used pyrotechnics to underscore his claim that chemistry was inherently fun and not al all like the way it is perceived in the public (which he described as “hard, boring, and an old man’s science”). It was a lecture that illustrated the two essential ingredients to good communication: storytelling and engaging the audience.
This lecture was a joint presentation from the Centre for Science Communication and the Department of Chemistry. We all left better for the experience.
