Engineering Colloquium Home
Schedule for this lecture.
Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium
Date: Monday, October 18, 1999
Do computers belong in nbsp;classrooms -- or might they get in the way of learning? Why do libraries nbsp;spend so much on multimedia gizmos rather than books, journals and librarians? nbsp;If computers are so great for efficiency, how come American business productivity nbsp;has been essentially flat over the past two decades? Rather than nbsp;bringing us together, might our online obsession be isolating us from each nbsp;other? Most of all, what's lost when we plop down in front of our nbsp;keyboard?
Dr. Stoll received nbsp;his PhD in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona in 1980. nbsp;His dissertation topic was "Polarization of Jupiter at Large Phase Angles" nbsp;and he specialized in the numerical modelling of the Jovian South Equatorial nbsp;Zone using polarimetry data from the NASA Pioneer 10 and 11 missions.
He interned at Kitt Peak National nbsp;Observatory in the Solar Physics section, where he created the Thoriumnbsp;comparison spectrum for high resolution classical spectroscopy. In nbsp;1980, soon after the opening of China, Dr. Stoll was sponsored as a US-China nbsp;exchange scholar to Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, where he researched nbsp;solar wind interactions with comets, as well as analyzing Chinese occultation nbsp;observations of the Uranian rings.
Later, he helped develop the computationalnbsp;system for the Spacewatch Camera, which has become the premier instrument nbsp;for detecting near-earth crossing asteroids. From 1982 to 1984, Dr. nbsp;Stoll built data analysis software and graphical interfaces at the Space nbsp;Telescope Science Institute. nbsp;
From 1985 to 1988, he worked at the nbsp;Keck Observatory Science Office, where he helped design the computing system nbsp;for the 10 meter telescope. In 1988 to 1990, at the Harvard-Smithsonian nbsp;Center for Astrophysics, he built astrophysical databases using high-energy nbsp;astrophysics spacecraft. nbsp;
During 1986 and 1987, Dr. Stoll tracked nbsp;an intruder across the nascent Internet, resulting in the convictions of nbsp;three German computer hackers for espionage. He wrote of this incident nbsp;in his best-selling book, The Cuckoo's Egg. In 1995, he wrote nbsp;Silicon nbsp;Snake Oil a critique of the overselling of computers. In 1999, nbsp;he wrote High Tech Heretic, a collection of essays questioning the nbsp;role of digital technology in society.
Dr. Stoll most recent astronomical nbsp;paper is "Modelling Histories of Chrondrites", written with Guy Consolmagno nbsp;and Dan Britt, and published in the December 1998 issue of Meteoritics. nbsp;He is on the advisory board of SETI, and now makes glass Klein Bottles, nbsp;which are single-sided, non-orientable, boundary-free topological manifolds.
He has invited before many groups, nbsp;including the World Economic Forum, Senate and House subcommittees, the nbsp;NSA, CIA, and FBI. He played himself in the PBS Nova television production, nbsp;"The KGB, the Computer, and Me." For several years, he was a nightly commentator nbsp;on the MSNBC television network.
Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Dr. Henning Leidecker GSFC
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