Modern Gypsies: the War Eagle Craft Fair

Past I-540 and highway 412, there is a country highway that winds through the rolling hills and broad pastures of rural Rogers. Many miles north of Fayetteville, it is lined with signs: “The ORIGINAL War Eagle Fair”, “Yard Sale”, “Have More -->”. It leads to the War Eagle Woods, thick as butter churned on the porch during a balmy summer day.

Silhouettes on iron arches subtly signal veiled ranches and the final sign reads “Bean Palace Restaurant: Pancake Breakfast served at 6:30 a.m."

Hundreds of craft vendors flock to the War Eagle Mill in Rogers, Ark. to peddle handmade soaps, dog bandanas, stoneware hangings, Scrabble bracelets and Hawaiian sun chairs, to name a few of the crafts available. Here, many of the vendors were drawn into the craft business and trade for family reasons.

“I got into (the craft business) because I got married and my friends told me, ‘you have to have a hobby if you’re going to get married,’” said J. W. Rushing, a professional woodworker and potter. When Rushing began his work as a carpenter, he didn’t know anything about the business, but he said that you can learn to do anything if you’re determined enough.

Rushing’s booth was filled with wooden car models with working wheels, semi-truck shaped bookshelves and pottery bowls, saucers, and other kitchenware. Lately Rushing has turned the hobby into a full-time job, traveling the country nine months a year to various craft fairs and festivals. “We’re just a modern band of gypsies,” he said.

The owner of the Forrest Flower Jewelry business out of Columbus, Ohio, came to the craft fair because of family. “My family has been coating leaves and flowers in gold for 114 years,” he said. Three generations have kept the business running and brings in a substantial income by setting up booths at 20 other craft events through the year, as well as maintaining a commercial Web site.

Tara Murphy's children prompted her to go to War Eagle. At first, they went as patrons to simply enjoy the event. But this year, Murphy and her husband Bruno are marketing the children’s environmental board game, "Endango." The game was originally invented with a piece of cardboard, a marker and animal figures for characters. The objective of the game is to teach children how recycling effects the animals in different environments and encourage them to recycle.

At first, the Murphys played the game at home, creating an environmental trivia. After testing the game in kindergarten classrooms and going through 11 evolutionary phases of the game, the family started marketing it to zoos, aquariums and museums. Now it is also stocked in the Springdale store, “Dilly Dallys.”

Karen Branch arrived at War Eagle to continue her quest in becoming a full-time potter while working with her husband. Branch uses an ancient Japanese technique called Neriage, where natural oxides are used to mix colors before stacking and slicing porcelain into various shapes and covering them in a wood ash glaze. Her husband built a kiln for their work, which takes 24 hours for a firing, has to be stoked for eight to 10 hours and takes two days to cool.

The two teach at the Ozark Natural Science Center, work at the Earthfire Branch studios and have set up a booth at War Eagle for the past eight years. Branch’s husband said the appeal of the craft fair is the communication with patrons, “I wouldn’t want to work on pottery without a break; it would be too isolated.”

Mike Garner and his sister started the business “Fat Mike’s Beef Jerky” in Winter Haven, Fla., when Garner ended his career in catering.

“The only thing this isn’t good on is ice cream and cake,” Garner said, as he leaned over the table, sprinkling beef jerky into the hands of patrons.

Like many of the vendors at War Eagle, the pair travels to other states, selling their product. When deciding on taking the partnership, Garner’s sister chose the job for its convenience, since she is a stay-at-home mom and can choose if and when she wants to travel.

Garner first heard about War Eagle while he was at the Spring Market in Memphis, Tenn., even though he had been to the same region for the Tontitown Grape Festival and the Prairie Grove Clothesline Festival. Their first experience at War Eagle was so profitable for them that, “On a scale of one to ten, we’d give it a ten,” Garner said. “We can’t wait to come back next year.”

Another vendor found War Eagle because his family lived in the region and would bring him to the craft fair each year.

Growing up in Bentonville, each trip to the War Eagle Craft Fair instilled a sense of wonder in Trent Tally. His wonder for art and the creations displayed at the fair shaped most of the decisions he made after that, such as the classes he chose to take in high school, earning a degree in Ceramics at the UA and the work that he found because of his education.

“I worked at the Terra Studios for five years before opening my own studio in 1992,” Tally said. “This is the fourth year that I’ve gone to the War Eagle Craft Fair (with my own booth); it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Steve Ayers, a potter from Hannibal, Mo., printed an accompanying brochure for one of his creations, called "101 Uses for a Bread Baker (pottery bowl)." In it were suggestions for family relationships, such as, “Use it as a safety helmet for your six-year-old on skates (straps not included),” “Use as a spousal projectile until broken and come buy a new one,” and “Use as Uncle Cliff’s spittoon.”

War Eagle

Past the interstates, there is a country highway that winds through the rolling hills and sweeping pastures. Eventually, it is lined with signs: “The Original War Eagle Fair”, “Yard Sale”, “Have More ”. It leads to the War Eagle Woods, thick as butter churned on the porch during a balmy summer day. Silhouettes on iron arches subtly signal veiled ranches and a final sign for the “Bean Palace Restaurant: Pancake Breakfast served at 6:30 a.m.” means you have arrived.

Thousands of vendors flock to the War Eagle Mill in Rogers, Ark. for a multi-faceted craft fair. Among the many reasons vendors are attracted to the craft business, family seems the most prominent in those that showed up Saturday.

“I got into (the craft business) because I got married and my friends told me, ‘you have to have a hobby if you’re going to get married,’” said J. W. Rushing, a professional woodworker and potter. When Rushing began his work as a carpenter, he didn’t know anything about the business. “You can learn to do anything if you’re determined enough,” he said. Rushing’s booth was filled with wooden car models with working wheels, semi-truck shaped bookshelves and pottery bowls, saucers, and other kitchenware. Now that Rushing is single, he has turned the hobby into a full time job, traveling the country nine months a year to various craft fairs and festivals.

Steve Ayers, a potter from Hannibal, Mo. printed a brochure of 101 Uses for a Bread Baker pottery bowl. In it were suggestions for family relationships, such as, “Use it as a safety helmet for your six-year-old on skates (straps not included),” “Use as a spousal projectile until broken and come buy a new one,” and “Use as Uncle Cliff’s spittoon.”

26campus news

Friday Night Live

9.25.2009

Rock Band. Pink and purple balloons. Flamenco guitar. Chocolate cake and punch. Karaoke. Latin dancing.

UA campus is treating crowds of students to free food, a variety of games and a chance to dance to live Latin music. Its many activities allow students to have a chance to hang out with friends as well as meet new people on campus.


This is all a part of Friday Night Live, sponsored by the Office of Student Activities, which is the same office that brings in renowned speakers and concerts. Friday Night Live events happen 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. each Friday.


However, there seems to be little communication between the Friday Night Live staff and the other businesses on campus, such as RZ’s Coffeehouse and Club Red.


“They don’t tell me a damn thing anymore,” said Clara, the night manager of RZ’s Coffeehouse. In the past, the coffeehouse would stay open to accommodate the event, but this Friday, the closing hour was the same as every Friday night: 10 p.m. That could have been prevented if the Friday Night Live staff had given RZ’s coffeehouse more than three days’ notice.


Friday’s event consisted of two separate concerts. The first was an hour of flamenco guitar performance in RZ's Coffeehouse by Lon de Ada. The other concert featured the three-piece band Boris Silva, which played outside to turn the concrete spaces of the courtyard into a dance floor.


“We didn’t even know that there was going to be a concert in here,” said Paul Scouten, an RZ’s barista. The miscommunication detained the coffeehouse staff from closing the shop on time, since the concert lasted 15 minutes past closing time and customers continued to linger, so they could talk to the artist.


The frustration of poor communication between the businesses and the Friday Night Live events spans closing time differences and the lack of extra business brought by students during Friday Night Live.


"We don't get anymore business during those hours, so we shouldn't even stay open until 10. I would just as soon close the place down by nine," Clara said.


Club Red employee Michelle Gandy enjoys Friday Night Live events, but maintains that the store service is not necessary for the students during that time, since there is so much free food.

A line starting at the grassy sections of the courtyard stretches well past the Union door, looping around. Still, students expected more friends to attend. “I kind of expected more people to be here, but most of my friends are coming after 11, so maybe other people are too,” said Marisia Hasfarina, a graduate student.


Lollipops and balloons were on every table in the union, surrounded by groups of students playing cards, Spanish bingo and painting masks. Other students played Dance Dance Revolution, Rock Band and sang karaoke in a room filled with the murmuring sound of two languages mixing.


There were less students to attend the first two Friday Night Live events this semester, said the program coordinator.


“We ordered 300 foodstuffs as opposed to the 500-600 that we ordered on average last year,” said Trisha Blau, Friday Night Live program coordinator. “It’s kind of hard to tell how many people are here, since they are so spread out.”


A possibility for the miscommunication between staffs on campus is the amount of employees compared to the amount of responsibilities.


The core group of employees is relatively small for Friday Night Live events. Blau has four students on staff who always set up the food tables, serve the food and arrange the activities, and are also the theme- creating committee. “There are usually five to 20 volunteers at each event, but this semester we’ve had eight to 10,” Blau said.

Two other organizations, First Year Experience and Resident Interhall Congress periodically team up with Friday Night Live to create a bigger event. Resident Interhall Congress has sponsored the most popular of the events, Razorback Idol. This year they will continue to sponsor it and in addition, provide for a Valentine's Day Friday Night Live.

The decline in attendance for Friday Night Live doesn't bother the program coordinator, but RZ's night manager is clinging to it, in hopes that her employees won't have to work overtime.

22profile

The black grass stuck under her fingernails as she grabbed fistfuls, stuffing them hastily into Walmart sacks. The stench was overwhelming. She silently hoped her children would not recognize it when she returned to the vehicle with the sacks. Twilight disguised the place along the highway, just as she had planned, so that her kids wouldn’t recognize the area. At this hour, she shouldn’t have been able to see the distinction between the normal grass and the patch of matted blades that looked as if it had been spray-painted black.

But she could see it. Of all images, this is one that she’d never be able to shake.

Any other day—any normal day—she might worry about waking or disturbing the senior citizens that owned the yard where she was kneeling, pulling up grass. But today was not a normal day and after all, she felt that the grass was her. More than hers, it was her.

Karen Simmons lived through the unthinkable each day for about two years: raising eight children on her own after her husband, Patrick died in a car accident at the age of 44.

She had looked forward to being a mother her entire life, but lost her motivation to continue providing care after the trauma of her husband’s death. “I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to carry on and raise these kids in this house that reminds me of him,” she told herself.

She met Patrick at the local pool during the summer after sixth grade and they were married five years later, the summer before Karen graduated from high school. Neither went to college, but began their careers in Searcy, Ark. and started their family a couple years later.

Simmons always wanted a big family, so she and Patrick always enjoyed discussing how many children they would have. Karen grew up with two sisters, so she looked forward to raising boys.

During their marriage, Karen and Patrick had Jordan, 24; Jade, 21 and Callahan, 16. Later, they adopted Cameron Grace, 11; Kayla, 10; Elijah, 6; Halle, 5; Rumor, 4 and Tuck, 3.

When Patrick died, Simmons lost more than a husband and her children lost more than a father.

“We lost our protector, our best friend, our comedian,” Simmons said. Patrick was her childhood friend, her cook, her teacher and her encourager.

Patrick loved teaching Sunday school, cooking for his family and bringing home injured animals to nurse them to back to health. The most memorable of the animals was a chicken with only one foot, which they promptly named No-Toe.

In the Simmons household most days began with Patrick getting dinner started before going to work at Jay’s Siding. This saved time for the large family and it was something he wanted to do.

Patrick insisted the entire family eat dinner together each night and made it into a ritual. He had to hear exactly how each child’s day went and each one looked forward to this moment in the day. “The idea of our family was perfect (to him), this is what he wanted,” Simmons said.

It was his personal game to save money. “Each day he would come home asking me to guess how little he spent on lunch that day,” Simmons said.

His friends had a different name for the game, though. “He would pay for a potato bar at Western Sizzlin’ and after finishing the potato, he would fill it up at the food bar,” said John Mullins, Patrick’s coworker. “One day when he came back to the table, there were chicken legs sticking out of the potato skin. He simply smiled and said, ‘Why yes, I do like chicken legs on my potato.’”

Patrick’s favorite season was autumn because the weather was so much easier for daily outdoor work on siding. “He was like a little kid on those days,” Simmons said. “He always came home with so much energy.”

On one of those crisp autumn days, Patrick rose early and began dinner, as always. This time it was chicken dumplings. Since it was Halloween, he and Karen talked about the kids’ costumes for the church event “Trunk or Treat” and although he had planned to leave early that day, his carpool group picked him up behind schedule. The carpool group was two of his coworkers, one of which was his closest friend.

Before arriving to the job site, the driver fell asleep at the wheel and the truck collided with a tree, injuring the passenger in the middle seat and sending Patrick under the vehicle, crushing him.

Nearly an hour after the collision, as the paramedics were still taking care of the other injured passenger, the driver finally mentioned for the first time that Patrick was under the truck.

Simmons was told Patrick would not have survived the crash either way, but she still couldn’t help wondering if he had any chance, that those 45 minutes could have changed the outcome.

This was the driver’s third time to have a wreck as a result of falling asleep at the wheel.

The funeral service was a closed-casket service and the family was not allowed to see Patrick’s face.

Even Karen was only allowed to see his hands.

This did nothing to help her deal with her grief. She could not feel that the situation was real if she didn’t have any proof. She didn’t even cry when officials delivered the news to her. “That’s not possible,” she said. “We’re the same person. It’s not possible. I would know it. I would feel it.”

In desperation, Simmons drove to the scene of the wreck a week after the accident happened to face the damage, to come to terms with the reality of the most unbelievable shock.

It was during daylight hours and she went to set a wreath near the telephone pole that the vehicle had hit when the homeowners stepped on to the lawn.

“Honey, why do you want to put it there,” the elderly lady asked. Simmons, confused, thought the wreck was in a certain area near the telephone pole, since it had been part of the accident and a new pole was already in place.

The homeowner pointed to a patch of black grass, “Here is where he bled out.”

The reality of death and loss overwhelmed Simmons as she rushed her kids back to the vehicle. She had to protect them from the harshness of what Patrick had faced that day. The blood had not been cleaned up, so she would come back later to remove it. When she returned that night, she tore every blood-stained blade of grass up, took the sacks home and burned them in her front yard.

This was Patrick.

This was finally a way to see him and say goodbye.

She knew Patrick, the boy who would yell every time he jumped off the diving board to catch her attention.

She knew Patrick, the teenager that would stand in her line every night as she worked at McDonald’s, who took months to ask for her phone number.

She knew Patrick, the faithful, loving husband.

She knew Patrick, the father who cried all the way home after dropping his oldest child off at college and cried that same week when one of the youngest children started kindergarten.

In a time where the previously spiritually oriented Karen was mad at God, she dealt with her grief by doing what Patrick wanted, no matter what.

The Simmons raised their children in church and though Karen felt she had her own spiritual relationship with God, Patrick was always the spiritual leader of the family. His passion was working with the youth at church and teaching Sunday school classes.

In the first year and a half of grieving, church became a different place for Simmons and her family. It was so intimately tied to Patrick that the two seemed impossible without the other. Simmons didn’t miss a single church service, even immediately after Patrick’s death. She felt that if she stopped taking the kids to church, it would be the most dishonorable action she could take towards him. This was her only hope during depression, “If I do enough right, he’ll come back and talk to me,” she thought.

Eventually, Simmons turned to her Sunday school teacher, Sherry Conley for insight on dealing with grief. Not long before Patrick’s death, Conley’s husband, Richard was diagnosed with a terminal illness and given six weeks to live.

Simmons had kept an eye on Conley after Richard’s death, wondering at her ability to continue all the church activities she was involved with: singing in the choir, teaching Sunday school and teaching a women’s Sunday school class.

Once faced with the loss of her husband, Simmons was even more baffled by Conley’s behavior.

“I would tell god I hated him, hoping he would kill me,” she said.

Simmons wrote letters to Conley, discussing these questions about grief and found encouragement in someone who truly understood her situation. Conley counters that the encouragement was mutual. “All I did was become an ear for her. We laughed and cried together; I just let her express her grief,” said Conley.

Through letters and conversations, Conley encouraged Simmons to be angry only at the situation, instead of God.

In their own times, his friends and coworkers visited her, sharing stories, giving her the experience of knowing a different side of Patrick.

Since Patrick’s death, Jordan has moved away and begun her career. Jade has married, Cameron wants to remember her dad by cooking and Callahan has become a source of strength and encouragement, a new spiritual leader for the family.

Karen's dimples press deeper into her cheeks while she sits on the couch, tying the strings of her girls’ Sunday dresses, shouts directions toward the kitchen for afternoon snacks, makes sure the little ones are being careful and speaks softly and patiently with the older children.

“Heaven is that much sweeter to me now, knowing he is waiting for me,” she said.

29final

Faced with technology changes, a loss of national advertising revenue and budget cuts, some local newspapers are adapting in ways that could change the way Fayetteville news is delivered.


The highest percentage of modern newspaper readers are male college graduates over the age of 55, according to a few studies by the National Newspaper Network Association of America. Where does this leave the newspaper industry? For a local newspaper, this could mean severely cutting the amount of staff members and evolving into a completely online publication, as the new generation looks to the Net for a majority of their daily news.


Due to budget changes and the transformation of the newspaper industry, the University of Arkansas’ newspaper, the Arkansas Traveler, will be almost exclusively an online publication beginning in August, said Tina Korbe, Traveler managing editor. This will cause many changes in the college newspaper publication, whose staff numbers have remained static in the past few years.


Unlike national newspapers, the northwest Arkansas newspapers have had an increase in readership. “A lot of the headlines you see about declining circulation are talking about the top 100 newspapers in the U.S.,” said Greg Harton, Northwest Arkansas Times’ executive editor.


Over the past five years, the Times circulation of home-delivery has increased overall by about 10,000 in Benton, Washington, Carroll and Madison counties, according to a Northwest Arkansas Times 2008 summary. “We have about 300-400 new subscriptions each week,” said Circulation Director, Hector Cuerva.


Even though the Northwest Arkansas Times’ circulation numbers are rising, it’s not resistant to the economic downfall. “The staff has experienced some layoffs in the past couple of years and offer employees one day per month off without pay,” said NWA Executive Editor, Jeff Jeffus.


Jim Blankenship, director of sales & marketing at the Northwest Arkansas Times, said any loss in newspaper revenue is not a direct cause of advertising, but that “the enemy is the economy.”


The Northwest Arkansas Times has a loss of advertising due to the decline in the housing industry and the increasing numbers of local businesses (especially restaurants) and banks shutting down.


The use of event marketing, Twitter, advertising corner flags and the company Web site are a few reasons the NWA Times has an increase in readership. Corner flags are paper sheets that advertise the total amount of savings a customer can acquire through coupons when buying the newspaper, a critical feature when people are watching their budgets. “We [are now on] Twitter, not because we love twittering, but because it draws traffic to our Web site,” Harton said.


In the first quarter of 2009, Web traffic to newspaper sites grew more than 10 percent, according to the Newspaper Association of America. This effect is not limited to the national newspaper Web sites. Local newspaper Web sites are expanding features and seeing an increase in readership.


Brad Nichols, Internet Manager of Northwest Arkansas Times, explained the company uses animated internet ads, online Sunday real estate ads, photo slide shows and links that directly lead to the advertiser’s Web site to attract attention to their Web site. “Having links to advertiser’s sites has a twofold appeal, traffic increase to both the advertiser’s Web site and the newspaper Web site,” Nichols said. This is optimal for NWA Times, since the goal is to increase midday viewership, the slowest hours of online readership.


Stacey Roggendorff, representative of the Tulsa World newspaper, also expressed a positive reaction to the online publication of the Tulsa World. “We are striving right now…our Web site is getting more hits than it’s ever had,” Roggendorff said.


The Traveler has twice as many online readers than print copies per publication, with an approximate 10,000 registered online users and distribution of 5,000 print copies.


Jane Hocker, advertising manager for the Traveler said the advertising representatives will focus on selling advertisements for the Traveler Web site next year. Overall, the main goal of Web site ads is the same as print ads, which is to draw attention to the message; the Web ads simply have an advantage of interactive features which can make them more memorable, she explained.


The change to an internet publication is less troubling for the Traveler audience, in Hocker’s opinion, “[The] college student audience is unique because we have an especially technological audience.”


In the past, the main structure of the Arkansas Traveler staff included well over 40 employees: nine editors, four advertising representatives, several photographers, approximately 30 staff writers and various contributing writers.


The new Arkansas Traveler staff will be made of 25 people overall, which includes two sets of editors. One set of editors will work exclusively for the print publication, which will be reduced to one publication a week at an increased number of pages- 16, about twice the length of previous publications. The other set of editors will focus on the Web edition, which will be published five times a week. In addition, six staff writers will handle all stories: from news and lifestyles to sports, each writer will cover all topics.


Another possibility for national newspaper circulation decline could be lifestyle choices, such as the recent broadening in “news” source options that create low information voters and polarization, Hocker said.


Once an avid Newsweek reader, Hocker used to turn to Newsweek for world and national events and received a satisfaction that Newsweek would provide her with well-rounded, substantial news. Currently, she doesn’t depend on Newsweek heavily and takes the articles for what they are, one of many opinions. “Now it [Newsweek] is all opinion & I don’t feel that I get all of my news from it anymore,” she said.


Despite the heavy reliance on opinionated news, Harton said he believes that some people can ultimately tell the difference between opinion and “real” news. “[Eventually] we will become news delivery companies instead of newspapers,” he said.


Harton said he believes that newspapers should be geared toward the audience and that the direction is in print for now. “[In northwest Arkansas] far more readers want the paper in their hand.”


Korbe said the adjustments to the Traveler will bring great results and a myriad of opportunities for the Traveler, since the newspaper is quickly deciding when and how to adapt, “I see this as our opportunity to use the [technological] change for the better."

J-Days Commence This Week

A series of lectures about conflicts between the media and the judiciary titled “Judges Day” will take place between 8:30 a.m. and 5:15 p.m. Monday at the Donald W. Reynolds Center. It is free and open to the public. Judges Day is among the beginning events of J-Days, or Journalism Days, sponsored by the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism.

Arkansas Supreme Court Justices Annabelle Clinton Imber and Robert L. Brown will present five of the seven speeches. The judges will co-present the address, “Reporters confidential sources from the courts perspective,” and allot a section of Judges Day to a 30-minute “Ask a Judge: Question and Answer period.” The lectures “An Overview of American Judicial System” and “Ethical considerations” will be given by Justice Imber, while “Cameras in the Courtroom” will be presented by Justice Brown. For more information on specific lecture times, visit http://www.uark.edu/~kshurlds/JudgesDay/Welcome.html.

This year’s series of J-Day events are April 20-24. Not all of the lectures and events are focused toward journalism majors.

A Putt Putt Golf Tournament and lunch is open to the UA campus. It will take place 1-3 p.m., April 24 at Gator Golf on College Avenue. In order to register, contact Carol E. Rachal at 479-575-3113. Tickets including both golf and lunch are $10 for students and $15 for nonstudents.

“Putting Your Best Foot Forward: Tips for preparing you to enter the working world” will be presented by Sam Smith of the advertising company Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods. The lecture will take place twice; 9:30 a.m. in Kimpel 115 and 12:30 p.m. in J.B. Hunt 146.

The 2009 Roy Reed Lecture will be given by Philip Bruce, deputy general manager of National Public Radio West at 7 p.m., April 22 at the UA Alumni House.
The journalism-centered events include the Lemke Journalism Project Awards Reception and a lecture “Multi-Media Journalism.”

The Lemke Journalism Project Awards Reception will take place at 3-4:30 p.m. April 23 in Kimpel 111 and“Multi-Media Journalism” will be presented by various journalists at 11 a.m., April 24 in the UATV studio.

A few of the J-Day events are geared toward broadcasting students specifically. “Life after broadcasting,” a speech given by Jennifer Irwin, social editor of Celebrate magazine and Stacey Starck, employee of Gov. Beebe will take place at 11 a.m. Monday in the UATV studio. ESPN commentator, Jimmy Dykes will speak about the “Life of a Commentator” at 11 a.m., April 22 in the UATV studio. Philip Bruce of NPR West will speak at 10 a.m. April 23, also in the UATV studio.

Previously, J-Day was a single day of journalistic lectures. Starting in 2007, the Lemke Department of Journalism expanded J-Days to a week of guest speakers including television managers, photographers, editors, graphic designers, and UA Alumni of the Journalism department. The myriad of speakers covered various aspects of new media, alternative media and the changes taking place in the industry, according to an UA press release.

Nobel Laureate in Physics to speak at UA this week

4.4.09

Nobel Laureate Joseph Taylor will deliver the 13th annual Robert D. Maurer Distinguished Lecture at UA this week. The lecture series was named after Robert D. Maurer, Ph. D. who invented the first telecommunications-grade optical fiber. It is sponsored by the department of physics in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Each year, the lecture hosts a variety of scientists to speak on topics such as stars, lasers, molecular beams, Einstein and the Universe in general. Among the former 12 lecturers were supernova experts, three other Nobel Laureates in Physics, various professors and authors, several of which graduated from Harvard and Stanford.

The lecture “Binary Pulsars and Relativistic Gravity” will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 2, in the Donald W. Reynolds Center. The lecture is free and open to the public. The department of physics chose Taylor’s lecture as part of celebrating the International Year of Astronomy, Assistant Professor in Physics, Julia Kennefick said.

Taylor discovered the first binary pulsar, along with Russell Hulse, which earned them the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Prior to earning his doctorate in astronomy from Harvard University, Taylor was educated mainly in Quaker institutions, a part of his heritage. In his autobiography, Taylor said, “Somewhat backward high-school introductions to chemistry and physics, [though] I failed to recognize them as such at the time, did not dampen any enthusiasm for science…” The last of his experience with Quaker institutions was Haverford College, where Taylor earned his bachelor’s degree in physics. His teaching career began at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, but has spent the past 29 years as a professor in the department of physics at Princeton University.

In Taylor’s autobiography, he said his thesis was in radio astronomy and built a working radio telescope as part of his senior honors project. Radio astronomy eventually led to the interest in the study of pulsars.

Pulsars are neutron stars, but that has not always been common knowledge. According to Taylor’s Nobel lecture, when he began observing the first four pulsars in 1968 and attempting to find more, it was merely inclination that pulsars were neutron stars: orbiting magnetized remnants of supernova explosions that produce radio waves. As he started to recognize the unique characteristics of pulsars, he made a computer algorithm to identify them, which soon led to finding a fifth pulsar.

The Nobel Prize press release explains that a binary pulsar has two pulsars, each with a mass akin to the sun, that are in orbit at relatively short distances from each other. In addition to emitting radio waves, the binary pulsar emits gravitational waves. Taylor and Hulse’s discovery nullifies Newton’s gravitational physics, but aided in proving Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Before the discovery of pulsars and binary pulsars, Einstein’s general theory of relativity was not seen as a practical theory. The finding of gravitational waves from binary pulsars brought gravitational physics into the spotlight.

Part of Taylor’s gravitational discovery enabled exploration of a new subfield in astrophysics by testing the relativistic nature of gravity via comparisons of the Universe’s pulsar time with the Earth’s atomic time. The Nobel Prize in Physics press release explains, “The pulsar’s pulse period has proved to be extremely stable… [it] increases by less than 5 percent during 1 million years.”