The Black Hole

http://store.mysticalsanfranciscophotography.com/c/fredericlarson

The darkly dressed hooded man - the one with the silver alien hanging from his neck and the deranged eyeball glasses that blinked on and off - suddenly began hurling objects into the crowd. Milky Ways, Starbursts, sticks of Orbit and Eclipse gum. "I'm a black hole, and I'm going to evaporate away," shouted UC Berkeley astronomy Professor Alex Filippenko, flinging the candy faster and faster as students whooped and waved their hands in the air. For more than a decade, Filippenko has repeated this annual ritual. He doesn't suck up everything in the room or look like the Oakland Raiders' most hard-core fans. But when it's time for his Halloween lecture, he is always a black hole. There were about 500 people in Wheeler Auditorium on Wednesday afternoon. Although the airborne treats midway through the class caught many by surprise, the students are accustomed to the strange phenomena conjured up by their unconventional instructor, who was named professor of the year by a national foundation in 2006.

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People & Blogs

Tags:

• black
• hole
• oakland
• raiders
• halloween
• frederic
• larson
• Berkeley
• professor

[calmartin]

The best professor I had at Cal.  Just awesome!

[cashingout024]

Cool guy.

[peach0618]

I never had him as a teacher so instead he is my scientist crush :)

[JohnnyDucati1]

Great professor! Best I ever had.

[DVincentW]

Cool teacher indeed.