A joint release fromThe University of Texas at Austin
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State)
Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
München, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Press Release Sent: October 1, 1997 

Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize and noted author, will deliver the keynote address at the dedication of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, October 8, 1997. Representatives of each of the HET's five partner institutions will also speak during the ceremony, which will begin at 10:00 a.m. and end at 11:00 a.m.

Steven Weinberg is a theoretical physicist. He holds the Josey Regental Chair of Science at the University of Texas and is a member of its Physics and Astronomy Departments. Well known for his development of a field theory that unifies the weak and electromagnetic interactions of the elementary particles, and for other major contributions to physics and cosmology, he is a member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and Britain's Royal Society, as well as the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Astronomical Union, and the American Historical Association, among others.

Weinberg is the author of the prize-winning book The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (which has been translated into 22 foreign languages) as well as Gravitation and Cosmology, The Discovery of Subatomic Particles, Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics (with Richard Feynman), The Quantum Theory of Fields, and over 200 articles on elementary particle physics, cosmology, and other subjects. His book, Dreams of a Final Theory, was published in 1993. He was active in the Superconducting Supercollider project as a member of its Board of Overseers, its Site Selection and Evaluation Committee, and its Science Policy Committee. He has also served as founding director of the Jerusalem Winter Schools of Theoretical Physics, co-editor of the Cambridge University Press Series of Monographs on Mathematical Physics, consultant at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and member of the Board of Editors of Daedalus magazine, the Council of Scholars of the Library of Congress, and many other boards and committees. His work in physics has been honored with numerous prizes, including, in 1979, the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1991 he was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Professor Weinberg was born in New York City. Educated at Cornell, Copenhagen, and Princeton, he also holds honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago, the City College, the University of Padua, the University of Rochester, the University of Salamanca, Washington College, the Weizmann Institute, and Yale University. He taught at Columbia, Berkeley, M.I.T., and Harvard before coming to Texas in 1982.

Also speaking at the HET Dedication:

• Dr. William H. Cunningham, Chancellor of the University of Texas System

• Dr. Peter T. Flawn, President ad interim, the University of Texas at Austin

• Dr. Graham Spanier, President of the Pennsylvania State University

• Ms. Jacqueline Wender, representing Gerhard Casper, President of Stanford University

• Professor Dr. Andreas Heldrich, Rektor of Ludwig Maximilians Universität München

• Professor Dr. Hans-Ludwig Scheiber, President, Georg-August-Unversität Göttingen

• Dr. Frank Bash, Chairman of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Board of Directors and Director of McDonald Observatory

• The Honorable William P. Hobby

• Mr. Robert E. Eberly

Contacts:

Joel W. Barna, McDonald Observatory, 512/471-6335 (fax 512/471-6016)

Barbara K. Kennedy, Penn State, 814-863-4682 (fax 814-863-1003, mailto:science@psu.edu)

Editor's Note: Copies of this and other press releases about the Hobby-Eberly Telescope dedication are available at high-resolution images are available at http://www.as.utexas.edu/mcdonald/het/het.html
and at
http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/het/index/het.html