Phil Plait

• Located in Boulder, CO
• Former NASA astronomer and author
• Runs the 'Bad Astronomy' blog for Discover Magazine
• Host of 'Phil Plait's Bad Universe on the Discovery Channel

For as long as he can remember, Dr. Phil Plait has been in love with science.

“When I was maybe four or five years old, my dad brought home a cheapo department store telescope. He aimed it at Saturn that night. One look, and that was it. I was hooked,” he says.

After earning his doctorate in astronomy at the University of Virginia, he worked as a NASA contractor at the Goddard Space Flight Center, working with the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Plait began a career in public outreach and education with the Bad Astronomy website and blog, debunking bad science and popular misconceptions. The book Bad Astronomy was released in 2002, followed in 2008 by Death From The Skies! Dr. Plait’s television show, Phil Plait’s Bad Universe premiered on the Discovery Channel in September 2010.

Dr. Plait has given dozens of talks about science and pseudoscience across the US and internationally. He uses images, audio, and video clips in an entertaining and informative
multimedia presentation packed with humor and backed by solid science.

He has spoken at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, the Space Telescope Science Institute (home of Hubble), the Hayden Planetarium in NYC and many other world-class museums and planetaria, conferences, astronomy clubs, colleges & universities, and community groups. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Pax TV, Tech TV, the SciFi Channel, Radio BBC, Air America, NPR, and many other television and internet venues. The Bad Astronomy website receives more than 6 million hits per year and received the ‘Best Science Blog’ Weblog award in 2007. His writing has appeared in Sky and Telescope, Astronomy magazine, Night Sky magazine, Space.com, Maxim, the Skeptical Inquirer, and the Huffington Post, and more

To get an idea of how Phil speaks, you can check out this link: http://www.samaralectures.com/speakers/phil-plait/.

Phil will love to talk on the following subjects:

• Bad Astronomy - In this general discussion of popular science myths, Dr. Plait demolishes a wide array of scientific misconceptions, from standing eggs on end, to blowing up asteroids. Using video clips from several blockbuster movies and television shows including “Armageddon”, “Deep Impact”, “Enterprise”, and “The Simpsons”, he talks about Hollywood science (or the lack thereof).
  
  
• Death From The Skies! - Asteroid impacts! Cometary debris! Extinction level events! These are the ways the world might end, and these are the topics of “Death from the Skies!”, a scientifically-based but fun look at giant impacts from cosmic objects. Phil Plait — astronomer, author, and blogger — talks about how these events have shaped our history, how they may do so again, and why Hollywood always seems to get them wrong. And lest you think it’s all doom and gloom, Plait goes into details on how we might prevent the next great impact from ruining our whole day.
  
  
• The Moon Hoax Hoax - Dr. Plait gleefully tears apart the ‘evidence’ that NASA faked the Apollo Moon missions.
  
  
• 7 Ways a Black Hole Can Kill You - We all know that falling into a black hole is a oneway trip to being crushed into a submicroscopic dot. But it turns out that’s the *least* interesting way a black hole can kill you. Astronomer and author Phil Plait will discuss all the myriad ways a black hole can ruin your day, using cutting-edge science and more than a little dash of humor.
  
  
• In The Beginning - A dissection of young-Earth creationist claims about the age of the Earth and the Universe, and why they are wrong. Dr. Plait takes an unflinching look at some of the deceptions and lies told by proponents of a young Earth

Dr. Plait charges an honorarium of $6000 to speak.

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