Dear FIU Students,
I am so pleased to be able to teach Physics and Astronomy at Florida International University in Miami, Florida!
I am a scientist, an astrophysicist who believes in the power and importance of a broad education that involves looking at the world from a variety of angles. In my class, you will acquire scientific knowledge, but we will also explore the creative side of science.
My lectures are, in fact, based on a unique blend of science and art, knowledge and emotion--a concept I call "Emotional Learning," since it is based on the 4 "E"s: Entertain, Educate, Enlighten, and Enthrall. When you are engaged on these multiple levels, learning finds an emotional home, and it is remembered forever.
This approach has grown out of my own experiences with physics and astronomy and the joy that has come from pursuing it. As a young child, I spent the summers in the countryside outside Milan, Italy with my grandmother. It was she who first introduced me to the wonders of the night sky and showed me how many things become possible when we allow our imaginations to fuel exploration. She encouraged me to observe carefully, but always with a sense of wonder and appreciation.
Ever since then, I have considered learning exciting and as necessary as air. To learn is to grow, and the result is not only personal fulfillment, success in life but also the enrichment of humankind. I carried these ideas with me while studying physics at the University of Milan and while conducting my doctoral research at the University of California, San Diego; they helped make learning a fun and active experience for me.
Perhaps, there is another "E" which belongs among the four "E's:" EMPOWER. Education empowers us. It is the most powerful springboard for opening our minds and our hearts and guiding us to a greater understanding and appreciation of the universe and our place in it. It is when we understand that we possess the power to act.
As I have written in books and articles, "I enthusiastically embrace the fabulous new discoveries of science and astrophysics, but I do not want to stop there. I want these discoveries to swim in our imaginations, and to open our hearts and minds to new ways of thinking and feeling about life."
As your Professor of Physics and Astronomy, I will bring all of my knowledge, enthusiasm, and dedication to the task of insuring your understanding and basic skills, fostering enthusiasm and love for science, and encouraging a desire to pursue and use it to achieve your own personal goals. I want to make your learning as exciting and significant as the Universe itself. Until then I remain ...
Stellarly Yours,
Dr. Fiorella Terenzi
DR. FIORELLA TERENZI QUOTES:
- I enthusiastically embrace the fabulous new discoveries of astrophysics, but I do not want to stop there. I want these discoveries to swim in our imaginations, to open our hearts to new ways of thinking and feeling about life, about men and women. I want us all to hear how the music of the spheres resonates with the music of our hearts.
- We become blinded by a technological curtain of abstract mathematical theorems and complex astronomical machinery, and we forget to feel the wonder of infinite space. We fail to communicate with loquacious celestial objects.
- We have fallen into the 21th Century trap of believing that the only knowledge we can gain from the universe is objective facts and not poetic truths about our lives. We become deaf to the music of the spheres. And worst of all, we are afraid to look into the stars' eyes.
- What I hope to do with my work is to bring back the sense of beauty and poetry to astronomy and science. I would like to help inspire a new connection with the Universe.
- Whether we want to admit it or not, us scientists have forged a "materialistic world view" of the Universe. If there are only objects out there, and not subjects with which we can commune, we find ourselves isolated in a world of Things. It is just Us (the observers) and Them (the things we observe), and our relationship to these Things out there is reduced to possession, even if possessing celestial objects only means possessing knowledge about them.
- I dream a science in which reason and imagination are not enemies, but rather partners in appreciation of the wonders of the Universe.
IN THE MEDIA:
Dennis Miller, "The Dennis Miller Show"
"A cross between Carl Sagan and Madonna."
Wall Street Journal
"Look at the stars. Can't you hear them? Now, thanks to Fiorella Terenzi, an astrophysicist and musician, stargazers can peek through a telescope, glance at the Milky Way and listen to the cosmos. ... Initially, Dr. Terenzi kept acoustic astronomy to herself. But now she has turned performer, and Earth people are tuning in." (See the article.)
CNN, "Future Watch
"The source for this sound is a galaxy far, far away. How can we hear music from a galaxy? Well, our interpreter is Italian Astrophysicist Fiorella Terenzi." "So Terenzi the Astrophysicist, who started out trying to find another way to classify celestial objects, is also Terenzi the musician, with an album called Music from the Galaxies and performance at observatories and planetariums and on TV."
People Magazine, Full page article
"She said she was an astrophysicist, and I said 'Yeah, sure' recalls veteran jazz keyboard player Herbie Hancock of their first meeting in 1993. 'But the more she talked, the more believable she sounded".
Time Magazine, Full page photo
Another practitioner on the rise is Italian astrophysicist, Fiorella Terenzi, who has been described as a cross between Madonna and Carl Sagen. Terenzi has used radio telescopes to intercept radio waves from a galaxy 180 million light-years away, them fed them into a computer, applied a sound-synthesis program to convert her data into music and produced "Music From the Galaxies". Result: part New Age, part Buck Rogers sound track, played on an oscilloscope
Glamour
"What's 180 million light years away and has a beat you can dance to?"
"Forget pop stars. Twenty-eight year-old Dr. Fiorella Terenzi has recorded a whole pop galaxy."
NPR Talk of the Nation: Science Friday - Ira Flatow
"For centuries astronomers have been looking at the stars. But can our ears tell us something that our eyes can't? ... Is it possible that there is more to learn by listening to the stars?"
Newsweek On-Air Radio
"In a new Island Records CD called Music from the Galaxies, Italian Astro- physicist and composer Fiorella Terenzi has used the most modern radio-tele- scopes and computers to convert the natural radiation from a galaxy designated UGC6697 into the audible range then add instrumental harmonies. A fascinating demonstration of human intelligence. On October 12 (1992), American scientists will turn the tables, kicking off their largest efforts yet to scour distant galaxies for intelligence on that end."
National Public Radio, "Weekend Edition"
"Italian Astrophysicist Dr. Fiorella Terenzi marries her knowledge of radio- astronomy and her passion for music on a new release on Island Records called Music from the Galaxies. She did it by collecting information from radio signals generated by celestial bodies and transposing those signals onto a musical spectrum."
RollingStone.com
"Combining her passion for music with a remarkable scientific discovery that heavenly objects emit radio waves which are very similar to musical notes, Dr. Fiorella Terenzi took data from a radio galaxy known as UGC 6697 and translated it into frequencies that can be heard by humans, then played it on a synthesizer. Whooshes, buzzing, oscillating frequencies and deep didjeridu-like drones combine to sound like nothing else on the planet -- or in space. This is not music in a traditional sense; there is no melodic development or harmony, except on the last track, "Cosmic Time," where our friendly UGC 6697 is accompanied by harp, hand drums, and synthesizers for a lovely fusion of earth and space. If you've ever wondered what it sounds like out in space, or have an adventuresome ear, listen to the real space music. ~ Backroads Music/Heartbeats, All Music Guide"
Island Records
"A landmark release - an uncommon fusion of science and art, astronomy and music, known as Acoustic Astronomy"
IEEE Spectrum
"Now her sounds - from radio galaxy UGC 6697, which is 1.7 quadrillion kilo- meters (180 million light years) away from earth, are available on audiocassette tape and compact disc as 'Music from the Galaxies'." "In some, familiar sounds and noises are discernible - like the deep breaths in 'Sidereal Breath', several out-of-tune basses in 'Galactic Beats', or a tropical jungle full of noisy birds and animals in 'Collision'. In others, the sounds are more unusual."
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