The word sabbatical is a personal call to action for physicist Dan Fleisch, best-selling author and award-winning professor. After being named Wittenberg’s Ohio Professor of the Year last fall, Fleisch quickly embarked on a series of projects, which, in keeping with his expertise in electromagnetics and space physics, reflect his desire to make “energy visible.”
For starters, his recently completed book, A Student’s Guide to Vectors and Tensors, has already received five stars on Amazon.com in the United Kingdom, with one reviewer saying, “What an outstanding book, I just wish I'd had it 10 years ago…. It's all there and more some; and everything is explained so clearly—Daniel Fleisch deserves a medal.” The book has since been released in the United States, and Fleisch offers a sneak peek at what a tensor actually is via YouTube.
The success of his latest book is easily tied to his first book, A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equations, which is the 33rd best-reviewed science book on Amazon. The company has approximately 1 million science books for sale.
Published by Cambridge Press, Fleisch’s work has become so popular that the publisher would like for him to produce one book per year. Knowing that such a request would compromise his first passion, teaching, Fleisch has asked former student and now fellow physics professor, Julia Kregenow ’01, to serve as his co-author. Kregenow currently teaches astronomy and astrophysics at The Pennsylvania State University, and will travel back to campus Dec. 18-24 to work with Fleisch.
Aside from writing, Fleisch is also working with David Detrick, executive director of the Springfield Symphony, to plan a special musical journey through the solar system. Titled “Out of this World,” the program, slated for Feb. 25, 2012, will include spectacular images and videos that will accompany the music of The Planets composed by Gustav Holst.
“We're also planning to include live dramatic readings by actors portraying William and Caroline Herschel, Cecilia Payne, Galileo, and Einstein,” Fleisch said.
A youth-oriented version of the performance will take place Feb. 24, and Fleisch also plans to open Wittenberg’s Weaver Observatory for multiple viewing sessions and special lectures in the weeks following the event.
Additionally, Fleisch is also in the midst of finalizing his Delivering Science initiative.
“What we have found is that having books in the house and actually available for young people to read supports their education even more,” Fleisch said.
Knowing that, Fleisch solicited the best high-school-age-appropriate science books from colleagues across his field and then purchased the books. He then worked with liaisons from area high schools to determine those students who have a significant interest in science. Working in collaboration with the liaisons, Fleisch selected one student to whom he delivered all the books along with an iPad on which multiple science apps were already installed. The hope is that the student recipients will continue to pursue science long after their high school careers conclude.
“So often science conjures up an intensity that can sometimes make students decide against the field,” Fleisch said. “My hope is that more college science professors will recognize the example they can personally set for high school students in encouraging them to pursue the field.”
As the 2010 Ohio Professor of the Year, Fleisch also leveraged his recognition to meet with state representatives about the initiative, and he is currently visiting high schools, most recently Miamisburg High School, talking about such topics as curved spacetime and black hole with students.
Called a “master scientific communicator” by Electronic Design Magazine, Dan Fleisch daily inspires his own students. Thanks to this program, high school students will have a chance to see up close and personal just how he does.
“I’m a person for whom the life of the mind is such a driving force,” Fleisch said. “Helping others have those ‘wow’ moments is most rewarding.”
A regular contributor of science commentary to the PBS station WYSO in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Fleisch has also published technical articles in numerous academic journals and presented more than a dozen professional papers related to high-speed microwave instrumentation and radar cross-section measurement.
In 2006, he appeared in the documentary “The Dayton Codebreakers,” and three years later, he became the first U.S. citizen to receive an Arthur Award from Stuart McLean of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Recipient of the highest teaching award at Wittenberg, Fleisch received his B.S. in physics from Georgetown University in 1974 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in space physics and astronomy from Rice University in 1976 and 1980, respectively. He joined the Wittenberg faculty in 1998.
–Karen Gerboth '93
