Celebrate the Exploratorium’s 40th Anniversary with a panel discussion

Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens
Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up—

A New Book by K.C. Cole

November 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the Exploratorium’s founding in San Francisco by Frank Oppenheimer. With it comes a new biography that profiles its fascinating founder. K.C. Cole, Joined by San Francisco Chronicle’s eminent Science Editor David Perlman who knew Oppenheimer and the Exploratorium at its founding, discuss Oppenheimer and The Origins and Nature of the Exploratorium on November 15, 2009, 3pm

Frank Oppenheimer was the brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer which he wise-cracked probably made him the “uncle” of the atom bomb. Like his famous brother, he was a brilliant physicist, but also an educator, and ultimately the guiding genius behind the Exploratorium, the place that started a worldwide revolution in museums and science education.

Physicist Frank Oppenheimer was side-by-side with his brother, J. Robert, as the first nuclear explosion changed the world, and both of them, forever. Frank too, worked on the Manhattan Project, and he too, went on to suffer professional exile – forced out of academia and research – caught up in the near-paranoiac persecution carried out by the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. After a long stint as a cattle rancher in Colorado (and teaching science in the local one-room school house), he eventually returned to academia, and became interested in education.  Frank finally found his true niche – and inadvertently coined a new noun – as founder and director of the Exploratorium. In the process, he created a new kind of museum dedicated to unstructured exploration and discovery – a place where science and art are inseparable parts of one magical whole – and changed the museum field forever. Noted science writer K.C. Cole’s new book chronicles the life of Frank Oppenheimer and with it, the history and impact of the Exploratorium, what Cole calls “San Francisco’s world-renowned museum of awareness.”

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Cole’s appearance on November 15 at 3pm coincides with the Exploratorium’s 40th year.  Joining in the conversation to look at The Origins and Nature of the Exploratorium is San Francisco Chronicle’s eminent science editor, David Perlman, who knew Oppenheimer and the Exploratorium virtually at its founding, along with others who were there at the start.  They discuss the genius Renaissance man, as well as the Exploratorium’s vibrant creative culture, an Oppenheimer legacy.  Q & A session follows. As capacity is limited, reservations are strongly recommended — www.exploratorium.edu/40th/kcpanel. Admission is free for members and included with museum admission for non-members.

Discover the never-before-told story of Frank Oppenheimer. Believing that “without understanding, we’d all be sunk,” he created a museum of human awareness that combined art and science while encouraging play, experimentation, and a sense of joy and wonder. A friend and colleague of Oppenheimer for many years, K.C. drew from letters, documents, and extensive interviews to tell this tragic, funny, and uplifting story of a man whose irrepressible spirit would inspire so many.

K.C. Cole, a long-time science writer for the Los Angeles Times, is currently a professor at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism. Described by Amazon.com as “the Leonardo da Vinci of science writing,” she is the author of eight nonfiction books, most recently, Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up — a memoir/biography of her mentor.  This latest book will be published on August 4, 2009, by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  Cole’s other books include The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty—a national best-seller translated into a dozen languages—and Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos, based on her Los Angeles Times columns. Cole’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Smithsonian, The Columbia Journalism Review, Newsweek, Esquire, Ms., The Washington Post and many other publications. Her work was featured in The Best American Science Writing 2004 and 2005, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002. Among her most treasured awards are the American Institute of Physics prize for science writing, the Los Angeles Times award for Explanatory Journalism, the Edward R. Murrow Award for “thoughtful coverage of scientific controversies” from the Skeptics Society, and the Exploratorium’s public understanding of science award, presented by Frank Oppenheimer the year before his death.

Believing with the late artist Bob Miller that the worst disease afflicting humankind is “hardening of the categories,” Cole likes to play with the natural connections between science, art, politics, and what-not, and hosts an irregular series of events exploring these intersections at Santa Monica Art Studios known as Categorically Not! Her commentaries can be heard on public radio’s Marketplace; she’s also a year-end commentator for NPR’s Science Friday and BBC’s World Service. Before coming to USC, she developed and taught courses on science writing and culture at Yale, Wesleyan and UCLA.

For more on Frank Oppenheimer go to www.exploratorium.edu/frank.
Photos of Frank Oppenheimer: www.exploratorium.edu/frank/photos/photos.html
To learn more about K.C. Cole, visit www.kccole.net

Additional 40th anniversary events include free admission on November 4, 7, and 8; an electrifying launch of Exploratorium After Dark for adults on November 5 with the Tesla-Coil Jousting Dr. Megavolt®; a free anniversary weekend featuring Tom Noddy and Bubble Magic for the whole family on November 7-8; and more to be announced through the year.

Check out http://www.exploratorium.edu/40th/