Our Time 1998

ea� (effi8�8 iUJZe, (The Thompson Lecture) T his year, the six hundred plus students, the one hundred plus faculty and staff, parents, friends of the Academy, and various other persons were able to sit back and be astounded by perhaps the most amazing historian alive today. James Burke, best-selling author, renowned documentary filmmaker and science historian, was the key speaker at the Seventh Annual James R. Thompson Leadership Lecture, joining the admirable ranks alongside Maya Angelou, Carl Sagan, and Leon Lederman. His lecture, which he delivered in the Gymna­ sium on November 21, 1997, was oddly entitled "Mecha­ nisms of Change: Do Lemons Whistle?" Through the captivating power of intelligent words, exemplary jokes, shocking truths, and a delightfully clipped British accent, James Burke explored the wonders of the human brain, warned against the "dead hand of the institution," and continuously illustrated humorous connections between past and present advancements in technology. "If a link has never been made, no one knows it's there," Burke explained. He made our audience gasp and applaud by setting out to do just that: show us that links exist between the oddest things humankind could possibly think of, in history and literature as well as science and math. His dialogue concerning the design of the human brain and its capabilities, such as its forming new connec­ tions about the world around us, led directly into a joke that Burke claimed, "will cause your brains to form a new connection between birds and fruit." The joke, which was regaled and applauded up and down the aisles by one and all, went something like this: "A fabulously drunken guest was at a dinner party, when he approached his host and demanded, 'Excuse me, sir, but do lemons whistle?' The host, just slightly shocked, said no, of course, and the guest said, 'Oh, forgive me, sir, but I am afraid that I might have squeezed your canary into my gin and tonic!'" Concluding his lecture at a place like the Illinois Mathematics and Science academy, James Burke could not help but emphasize that learning how to retrieve information is more important than memorizing it.