March 11, 2009: Vol. 32, No. 10

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March 11, 2009 / GO Brooklyn / Gowanus / Where to GO

Tyson’s corner: ‘Sexiest’ astrophysicist to speak about Pluto

By Gersh Kuntzman

The Brooklyn Paper

Dan Deitch for PBS/NOVA

Starry eyes: Astrophysicist to the stars, Neil deGrasse Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium, will join the Secret Science Club at the Bell House on Wednesday, March 18. Tyson is a regular on “The Colbert Report.”

Tools

The Secret Science Club is finally ready for prime time.

The group that has mixed science and cocktails in its three years — and featured a few Nobel Prize winners along the way — landed Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson to headline on Wednesday, March 18.

“He’s just so fabulous,” Secret Science Club curator Margaret Mittelbach said of Tyson, who was once named the “sexiest astrophysicist alive” by People Magazine (can Brad Pitt say that?).

Heaven By Russo

Tyson told GO Brooklyn that the Secret Science Club would be a perfect venue to discuss his book, “The Pluto Files.”

“It’s not a science book, but a book about the sociology of science,” he said. “It’s about how people reacted to the demotion of Pluto. People didn’t want science to change.”

Demoting Pluto forced everyone to rethink everything he’d been ever been taught.

“Everyone remembers the Solar System mnemonic: ‘My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas,” he said. “It’s very hard to change that.”

BoroDeal

But couldn’t it just be “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos”?

“I don’t like the restrictive view of the Solar System anyway,” he said. “I mean, most of the moons are more interesting than the planets and no one ever talks about them!”

Well, until Wednesday night, that is.

Secret Science Club, March 18 at 8 pm at the Bell House [149 Seventh St., between Second and Third avenues in Gowanus, (718) 643-6510]. Cover: $3.

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Reader Feedback

A O from BKLYN says:

Love this guy cant wait to see him!

March 11, 2009, 1:13 pm

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