Peter Hamilton
Staff Writer
So far this year Dean David Baird’s Distinguished Lecture Series has been popular with students and faculty. With speakers like U.S. Senator John Kerry and Dr. Leonard Shlain, chairman of laparoscopic surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, this year’s lectures have been interesting, and more importantly, crowd-pleasing.
On January 23, scientist Dr. Richard A. Muller, faculty senior of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and professor at the University of California at Berkeley, will be in Smothers Theatre to give a lecture entitled “Military Secrets of the Oceans, Atmosphere, and UFOs.”
According to Baird, President Andrew Benton heard Muller speak a couple years ago and asked him to come and speak for Pepperdine. Muller chose the topic on UFO’s, stating that it would be attractive to college students.
“I definitely think I’m attending Dr. Muller’s talk,” said freshman Jake Wootton. “I haven’t been to any yet, but I’m a little interested in the UFO part of the title.”
Freshman Bill Morton also plans to attend the lecture.
“I’ve been to a couple of the previous lectures,” Morton said. “But this one definitely sounds the most interesting.”
Muller studied under Luis Alvarez before he won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1968, and has continued his studies in the sciences. His work includes particle physics to astrophysics, cosmology, applied physics, geo-science, climate change and the effects of astrophysics and geophysics.
Muller said some of his proudest achievements consist of his studies with Nobel Prize winner George Smoot and their detection of the cosmic microwave anisotropy, the creation of a program to use supernovas for cosmology, which is a project that ultimately discovered the acceleration of the universe and its “dark energy”, and his invention of the most sensitive method now used to measure radioactivity, called “Accelerator Mass Spectrometry” or AMS.
Muller is most famous for his Nemesis theory, stating that a dim star orbiting the sun is responsible for the comet that killed the dinosaurs.
He is also associated with the Institute of Nuclear Particle Astrophysics, an organization that promotes the interdisciplinary work of nuclear and astrophysics studies. He has received a slew of awards including MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship Award (the so-called “genius” award), and the Distinguished Teaching Award at UC Berkeley.
In his lecture at Pepperdine, Muller said he will be focusing on the physics of the atmosphere and the oceans, how that led to the “flying disks” in Roswell, N.M., and how this still affects our national security. Muller hopes this topic grabs the attention of college students here at Pepperdine. Muller’s description of his lecture topic was meant to be ambiguous to do just that — draw the curious listener in.
“I want to leave the title a bit opened ended,” said Muller. “If anyone wants to know more of what happened at Roswell, come to my lecture”
For 34 years Muller has been a top-level consultant to the US government on matters regarding our national security.
He said he personally knew the man who made the “flying disks” fly in the Roswell incident, where the U.S. military was experimenting with weather balloons in order to detect enemy nuclear arms. Many UFO researchers have accused the government, including the CIA and the military of with holding information about a crashed UFO. The whole incident at Roswell has sparked interest in many researchers and conspiracy theorists.
More information about Muller and his accomplishments can be found at www.muller.lbl.gov; and more information about Baird’s Distinguished Lecture Series is available at www.pepperdine.edu/dean/lectureseries/.
01-18-2007