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Scientific American's The Amateur Scientist 2.0
A treasury of well over 1000 extraordinary science projects fully described on one easy-to-use CD-ROM.

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"Adventures in Discovery" was written by Art T. Winfree from 09 November 2001 until his untimely death almost exactly one year later. The column, in his words, was an exploration into what happens when we "ask primitive, naive questions to Nature on your own without too much reliance on often-inaccessible expertise and sophisticated equipment." These exercises in applied scientific thinking were remarkable for their depth and creativity.

Read the original explanation of Adventures in Discovery.

Professor Arthur Winfree (1942-2002) was one of the world's leading theoretical biologists. His work on the three-dimensional waves of electrical potential that control the timing of heart muscles has shown that they can have a mathematical shape that leads to cardiac arrhythmias. Winfree has been recognized with a MacArthur Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, an Einthoven Award in cardiology, and both a Norbert Wiener Prize and an Aisenstadt Chair in applied math in 2000. He was an enthusiastic friend, supporter, and contributor to the Society for Amateur Scientists.

The Arthur T Winfree Memorial Lecture

In recognition of his contributions to both the amateur science community and the Society for Amateur Scientists, SAS established the Arthur T. Winfree Lecture in 2003 to be given at the SAS annual conventions by a speaker invited by SAS.

His column, "Adventures in Discovery" consisted of a series of exercises, conundrums, questions, and recollections through which Winfree expounded the process of scientific discovery, while not losing sight of the fun of it.

The Arthur T. Winfree Lecture will seek to continue expounding the process and the fun of discovery by inviting others involved in science to offer their insights into this process. Lectures are to focus on learning how to discover, realizing the joy of investigation and, through scientific inquiry, understanding how nature works.

Lecturers will be selected and invited by the SAS leadership.

The inaugural Winfree Lecture was delivered by aviation pioneer Paul MacCready (above) at the 2nd Annual Citizen Science Conference, which was held at Caltech in July, 2003.

 

Vibrating the Brain

Diamonds in the sky ... and other stuff, too

More precious than diamonds, lumps of iron fall from the sky

"Reason" Takes a Lesson, concluded

Moon and Sun Violate Reason? Nope: "Reason" Takes a Lesson From Them

Moon Violates Reason

Adventure of the Rainbow Moon

Adventure of the Rainbow Moon: crucial experiment this afternoon in Tucson

Little Discoveries Using Stellar Magnitudes, Part 1

Little Discoveries Using Stellar Magnitudes, Part 2

Possible Worlds of Discovery

A Personal Encounter with Non-Euclidean Space

Paleontologists Discover Transistor Radio in Jurrasic Sediments

Trouble at Full Moon

Are straight lines curved in the sky?

   
Copyright 2005 by Society for Amateur Scientists