Modern science is an awesome, exciting adventure. Quite inexplicably, we seem able to investigate Nature, from detailed aspects of the Big Bang, through the machinery of our own genome, all the way to the Quantum Mechanics of quarks and neutrinos. At the same time, many thinkers have pointed out the ever-increasing gap between the cumulative, exponential progress in science and technology on the one hand, and on the other hand, the lack of comparable progress in our ability to use our new technological tools thoughtfully and responsibly. This gap cannot keep increasing forever. Some people think that we might be in the process of acquiring powers that we should not have, and that catastrophic consequences are not only possible, but probable or even inevitable. These issues will be discussed, with both exuberance and humility. Both of these complementary attitudes will be illustrated using the paradigm of Music.
 

    Vladi Chaloupka was born in what is now the Czech Republic (then occupied by the Nazi Germany). When the country was invaded again in 1968, this time by the Soviet Union, he emigrated to Switzerland, obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of Geneva, and worked at the European Center for Nuclear Physics. In 1975 he obtained a position of Research Associate at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. In 1980 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Washington; promoted to Associate Professor in 1982, full Professor in 1990. Since 1994 also an Adjunct Professor at the UW School of Music. US citizen since 1981. The original research emphasis on Experimental Elementary Particle Physics has gradually transformed into research in Musical Acoustics and Physics of Music. In his spare time (if there is such a thing) he plays Bach fugues on the pipe organ. Courses developed for the UW Honors program and taught since 1998 resulted into an intense, ongoing research and teaching effort on the issues of Science and Society.