rfield

I am Dr. Bob Field, research scholar in residence and founder of the cosmic evolution project. This is my new personal webpage. I will be migrating material from my discontinued faculty page later this year or next, time permitting.

Education

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• Ph.D. in physics, University of Illinois, 1978
• M.S. in physics, University of Illinois, 1972
• B.S. in physics, Case Western Reserve University, 1970

Research Interests

Cosmic Evolution Project

In June 2015, I began a multi-year effort to develop a new website at www.evolution.calpoly.edu to promote and document cosmic evolution projects in four domains: universe, solar system, Earth and geobiosphere, and brains and tools. Each domain represents increasing complexity and concentration of energy flow. Students may study the composition, structure, and evolutionary history of one or more domains. Scholars young and old may prepare evolutionary timelines of key historical events and may also choose to develop educational computer models and games to investigate the behavior of complex systems.

The mission of the cosmic and global evolution project is to provide inspiration, training, and educational resources to help current and future teachers, informal science educators, and others explore and explain the composition, structure and evolutionary history of the universe and the Earth from the Big Bang to big brains and AI. The focus should be on the sequence of historical events and underlying physical processes themselves rather than the scientific methodologies and evidence used to discover nature’s secrets.

We are developing educational content that includes the expanding universe, cosmic web, Milky Way, stars and stardust, Sun and Jupiter, solid Earth and Moon, climate of Venus and Earth, molecules of life and metabolism, and biological and artificial intelligence.

As a volunteer in the Cal Poly physics department for over 20 years, I have supervised student projects involving Earth and planetary sciences, astrophysics, cosmology, oceanography, atmospheric physics, prebiotic biogeochemistry, and evolutionary biology. I spent ten years preparing science based natural history programs in the local state parks and museum as well as guest lectures, poster displays, and the cosmic evolution website. The project approach is based on my 20 year aerospace career working on team projects to design, analyze, and develop advanced optical systems and components for space based lasers and other applications.

I supervise student secondary research projects usually involving physics majors, aerospace majors, astronomy minors, marine science majors, and biology majors. I am also recruiting scientists and educators who want to explore cosmic evolution and/or develop the cosmic evolution project website. Contact me by email for research opportunities including individual student projects for credit (PHYS200, PHYS400, ASTR200, ASTR400, GEOL200, GEOL400, BIOL200, BIOL400, CHEM200, CHEM400, senior projects) and part-time paid research in the summer or possibly during the school year.

Research Scholars talks

• Prove You're Not a Robot (pdf)
• Venus -- One Helluva Planet (pdf)
• From Pharaohs to Facebook: Touring Ancient Egypt after the Revolution (pdf)
• The Violent Birth of Mother Earth (pdf)
• Darwin in the Garden (pdf)
• Carbon and Climate (doc)
• Life on Our Evolving Planet (pdf)

Selected Publications link broken

Curriculum Vitae up to 2009