Video of the Public Forum Session of the Tenth Hawaii Conference in High Energy Physics (1985)
→
Pacific/Honolulu
Description
To help put the new High Energy Physics Group at the University of Hawaii on the map, Drs. Vince Peterson and San Fu Tuan dreamed up the idea of hosting Hawaii Summer Schools on a biennial basis beginning in 1965. The audiences were made up of mostly young scholars, and the lecturers were highly distinguished scientists, eleven of whom were or became Nobel Laureates. Eventually many other summer schools sprang up, and it was decided to bring the series to an end in 1985 by hosting the Tenth Hawaii Conference in High Energy Physics and inviting back all previous lecturers.
The Tenth conference was supported by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, but also by the local community. To help justify this support, Dennis Toyomura, a Honolulu architect, who was asked by then Governor George Ariyoshi to help organize the conference, came up with a bright idea. Dennis decided that the youth of Hawaii could benefit from this once in a lifetime opportunity to hear, meet, and speak first hand with some of the world's leading scientists. There would be a public forum which would "expose young people to heroes other than athletes". The forum would have a panel discussion involving a wide range of topics that would be of interest to high school students and the general public.
Panelists included Peter Carruthers, Karl Berkelman, James Bjorken, James Cronin, Richard Dalitz, Val Fitch, Leon Lederman, Yuval Ne'eman, and Samuel C.C. Ting. The panel discussion and a public lecture by Leon Lederman were taped by members of the UH Department of Educational Communications and Technology. The first part of the panel discussion, which took place 30 years ago, will be shown. The tape is of historical significance but the discussion is still very relevant today.
