The Physics Chanteuse is a cabaret-style musical act produced and performed by physicist and singer Lynda Williams for scientists at conferences and meetings. For each performance Ms. Williams researches the scientific topic and writes custom songs and repartee which are usually performed at the event's banquet.

The Physics Chanteuse is a smart, savvy, silly and sexy science entertainer - a Bette Midler meets Carl Sagan meets Sandra Bernhard meets Bill Nye meets Laurie Anderson type of science entertainer. The Physics Chanteuse is hip, witty, satirical, provocative and full of wonder and joy for science, nature and the cosmos. She can hold her own in the company of Nobel Prize winners and make even the most science phobic person feel like a scientist. She is unafraid to speak her mind or what is on the minds of the audience. As People Magazine says: 'she puts the fizz back in physics!'

When I was a graduate student in physics I wrote and performed Cosmic Cabaret: the Proto Show at the Climate Theater, a small experimental theater in SF in 1996. It was a one-woman musical multimedia show on cosmology and physics in which I was trying to explore highly technical physics topics with musical theater to a non-scientific audience. It was very challenging to do this without the show turning into a lecture or lesson because I had to do so much informing to get to the good stuff. It was a successful experiment because I learned a lot about the problem of creating science entertainment for a general audience and the show generated quite a bit of media material for my website, Science Entertainment.

Later that year I attended my first professional physics conference (an APS meeting in Washington DC) when I realized - this is the perfect audience for Cosmic Cabaret! No explaining needed! I realized in a flash moment that I could create this character and get gigs at conferences and meetings where there is always some sort of banquet entertainment. I wrote down the name Physics Chanteuse on my Atomic Physics homework and was immediately excited with the prospects. It was an epiphany.

At the time I invented the Physics Chanteuse, I was doing graduate work in physics multimedia pedagogy at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. I heard that they had a solid state conference coming up so I pitched the idea of performing at the banquet. I created the Physics Chanteuse on my website before I ever did a show and it was on this basis that the kind folks from Lincoln (Dr. Sitaram Jaswal and Dr. Roger Kirby) hired me to produce a show for the 44th Midwest Solid State Conference. I wore a very glamorous 50's satin pine green gown, long white gloves and gobs of faux diamond jewelry. I came out singing Carbon is a Girl's Best Friend and the rest is history!

I sent email pitches to every physics and astronomy conference organizing committee that I could find online for the subjects I was interested in. My website was pretty impressive for those early days of the web and it helped me nail gigs. Word spreads pretty fast in the physics community and soon my website caught the eye of a reporter from Physics Today (Jean Kumagai) who was kind enough to do a feature story on me based on my second gig for The United States Particle Accelerator School at UC Berkeley. It was a great article and the picture of me singing to Mel Month (the director of USPAS) certainly lent credence to the act and legitimized me in the physics community. After the Physics Today article came out in April 1997, people started contacting me to perform. The more I performed, the more the word spread. I have many 'benefactors' who believe in what I am doing and help me get more gigs by suggesting my act to their colleagues who are running events.

First and foremost, as the Physics Chanteuse, it's my job is to provide witty and fun entertainment for my clients. Beyond that, I am being creative and playful with physics while also being a satirist and social critic. As an artist who tripped into physics, I have a unique perspective on the field. Physics is a very closed club and members don't respect criticism from outsiders. I have paid my dues so now I'm entitled to make commentary. If I didn't have a graduate degree in physics and teach at a University, I don't think I would have access to these audiences.

Let me take this a step further - physics isn't just a private club, it's the modern priesthood. As Margaret Wertheim argues in her book "Pythagoras' Trousers" physics is essentially the modern church and physicists are the priests. They are pursuing the same goal, namely, to understand the mind of God as the ultimate mathematician. You can see it all the time in the new physics books such as "The God Particle" and "The Mind of God" - the ultimate pursuit of physics now is a theory of everything and it boarders on religious fervor. The whole indoctrination process is very cult-like: there is a secret language (math), there are Laws one must obey (physical laws), rituals are performed (experiments), there are severe forms of sacrifices (exams, thesis) and a hierarchy of enlightenment (degrees, honors, prizes). For me to put on a cocktail dress and dance around is, in some ways, blasphemy! It is downright pagan! I think it is vital to shatter the 'priesthood paradigm' because it excludes people (especially women) and keeps the general population from participating in making policy.

Do we really need to find a TOE? Do potential 'spin offs' justify spending billions of dollars on finding the Higgs particle? How about fusion? Laser weapons? Is it socially responsible to pursue these projects today? Physicists cringe at the idea of anyone outside their club making any decisions about the direction of their work but the truth of the matter is that big science is publicly funded and so - hello! - 'we the people' should have a say in what the physicists are doing.

Physicists, like anyone else, need to see themselves in a social context and engage in self-criticism

about what they are doing because the ramifications often reach far beyond their laboratories. I think

comedy is a safe way to do that. It gives people a socially acceptable and fairly painless way to

bring up taboos and fears while laughing about it. The cocktail dress provides a shock value that

hopefully snaps them out of the intellectual pews and reminds them that - HEY! Science is not a

church! It's a cabaret baby and everyone is invited to come and play!

When I was studying physics people would often ask me: "What are you going to do, build a bomb?"

To which I would say with a Mae West inflection, "I'm gonna build a love bomb and blow it up all over the world!" Well that is what I am doing.

Some folks sing about love and I sing about the nature of the Universe. Artists create art with what they are most passionate about due to an inner drive to express themselves or to a practical need to make money. I think that nature is the most rich and interesting show in the cosmos. My primary passion is for nature, not science. However, I have found in my life that science is one of the best tools one can use to explore nature. As I say in my song "Player" science is a 'power tool of the mind.'

I also have a social motivation for being a science entertainer and that is to facilitate science literacy and empowerment. In order for democracy to function in such a high sci-tech world it is absolutely necessary for society to be scientifically literate and empowered. Instead what we have is a scientifically illiterate citizenry who can't hold the science and technology rulers accountable for their policies and actions. This is dangerous because technocrats tend to be technologically sophisticated but socially retarded. So how are folks supposed to determine if they want to eat genetically modified foods, what mapping the human genome means or if they should have a nuclear power plant in the neighborhood, if they don't understand the basic science behind it or have the logical skills to make a decisions? Worse yet, what if they feel they are too stupid to make decisions about these issues and just give away their power to the so-called "experts"? Everybody needs to have a basic understanding and mastery of science to function in this society. So I sing to my students: "If you want to be a player in this hi tech world, you've got to get down and wrap your mind around science!" It isn't just about getting a job, its about survival.

I hated math and science in high school or, truly, I just hated high school. I flunked algebra and got a D in physics. I didn't have the best teachers. Nobody recognized that I was bright and, since I was a girl, I was pretty much ignored. I earned terrible grades in all my courses and never thought of going to college. I was very much devoted to dancing and hoped to go into performing arts after high school. I did love nature and I spent most of my outdoors with animals and horses. My uncle gave me a telescope when I was 16 so I did some amateur astronomy which led me to ponder the Universe quite a bit. In fact, I was quite the natural philosopher. Oddly, I never associated any of these things with science. Nature was alive and cosmic whereas science was about boring dead things and mass destruction. Vivisection, Frankenstein and the Bomb had taught me that.

After high school I spent the summer trying to 'make it' in Hollywood but quickly became extremely frustrated and bored with the whole game and decided that I would write my own shows to perform.

I quit auditioning and enrolled in community college, throwing myself passionately into it and becoming a straight A student.

To make a very long story short, I took a philosophy class from an awesome teacher who turned me on to logic and metaphysics. I became enthralled by the great metaphysical question of philosophy and consumed everything I could find on the subject. After trying to tackle Kant's "Progolema to any Future Metaphysics' I quickly came to the conclusion that a serious study of metaphysics requires a solid background in math and physics. The next semester I changed my major to physics and mathematics and I have never looked back.

I am not a genius but I work very, very hard and I did well but not without a lot of pain and suffering.

I had to make up for all the missed learning I lost in high school. I taught myself algebra and trigonometry over the summer and figured out how I learned math. It was always a struggle but the pay off is huge. When you finally understand something - its beautiful!

I think learning requires pain because you have to go through a time of complete confusion and uncertainty before you gain understanding. I think the capacity to tolerate the pain of confusion is the most crucial attribute someone must have to learning difficult topics. The second is having a methodology for relieving the confusion - that is, to gain understanding. Once I figured out how I learn, it became much easier. I had very good teachers who supported and encouraged me. There were times as a grad student that I would go my professor, crying that I was too stupid to do physics and she would yell at me like a drill sergeant: You are smart enough now get back to work! Note that she was a female professor. I would have never gone to my male professors crying like that! Maybe I owe my success to Dr. Susan Lea for kicking my butt and cheering me on during the darkest times when I feared that I was physiologically incapable of doing physics - that I wasn't wired smart enough.

Being often the only woman in my classes, I couldn't help but feel like an outsider. Perhaps more significantly, as an artist, I communicated differently than the rest of the geeks and nerds - that is, I communicated. I was outspoken and I wasn't afraid to ask stupid questions and I wasn't intimidated by my professors who are often revered as high priests in physics. I was on a mission and my gender wasn't going to stop me.

Science tends to be a very solitary endeavor and being an artist and a woman, I needed community and dialogue so I started physics clubs at every school I went to. This provided me with support and study groups, which helped enormously.

Who hasn't? I think the worse thing is to be condescended to and I still get that because of how I look. In school, if I felt I was being condescended to or sexually harassed by anyone, I confronted them about it. This has gotten me into a lot of trouble. There are a few professors who still won't talk to me that I now have to work with. It's too bad. Perhaps I was too harsh but I was a young filly. How are we supposed to improve ourselves if we don't keep each other honest?

I made mistakes. When I was young I had an attitude about it. If I felt I was being condescended to in class I would show up the next day in my black leather motorcycle suit and sit in the corner with feet kicked up on the desk, dark sun glasses on, and act like a cocky dude. I think I scared people but it isn't easy to figure out how to behave when you are being oppressed. I usually try a theatrical approach because I am a bit of a drama queen. That's why I do what I do.

It wasn't always a disaster. I had a professor who was sexist and elitist but with a good sense of humor about it. Once he made a mistake on the board and I pointed it out with the preface "I may be just a stupid woman but shouldn't that divergence on line two equal zero?" The men in the class shudder ed but the professor laughed. He got it. He was trying to change. People can only liberate themselves by speaking truth to power.

Chilly but warming up. When I first went into math and physics I was in denial of any sort of gender discrimination. I thought feminism was an "f word" used by whiny women. It didn't take long for me to change my perspective. Although huge strides have been made to level the playing field, physics is

still dominated by white men and there is plenty of discrimination - though I think most of it comes in the form of culture. I think that the biggest obstacle to women is the way physics is taught. Physics is very competitive and there are huge egos swinging the bat. There is an air of intellectual elitism that permeates the field. It is the ultimate intellectual boys club, which is not the most nurturing of places to be. Women who are able to survive in that environment have the balls to play the game the way boys do. That is changing somewhat because the way science is being done is changing. Research is being done now more as a cooperative team effort and less as a single genius in solitude, though that is still the image of what it is to be a physicist and that is still the operating paradigm at schools.

Professionally there needs to be more women in positions of power and more women making policy and serving on organizing committees. The community needs to support women having families while pursuing tenure. I get the greatest laugh from women when I sing in Hi Tech Girl: "Boys will come and boys will go and that's all right you see, I'm too busy making tenure to have a family." Women shouldn't have to choose between family and tenure. This is a structural discrimination that is deeply rooted in our society across all disciplines.

Most love it but some have problems with it. My shows are full of feminist commentary on the field but some women in physics have lost their sense of humor and react not to what I am saying but to the fact that I have a short dress on that accentuates my breasts. Or maybe they are pissed off because of 10 physicists invited to speak at a conference, two are women and one has a cocktail dress on. I understand how a lifetime of struggling in a male dominated field can make women bitter but what am I supposed to do - wear a garbage bag and bind my breasts for my shows! I'm an entertainer! I'm going to look as good as I possibly can! That's my job! If I were presenting a paper at a conference, I would dress appropriately for that. But come on, so what? Where is it written that people can't be smart and sexy?

Don't get me wrong - I have no illusions of artistic or intellectual grandeur. I know that one of the reasons I have had the success I have had is because I wear a cocktail dress. It is a novelty to see the juxtaposition of a smart woman who is also sexy - people act like I am the bearded woman in a freak show. It is so ridiculous. It is going against a stupid cultural stereotype - a stereotype I am trying to destroy. Just because I have a cocktail dress on and have big boobs doesn't mean that I am not smart and shouldn't be taken seriously. Furthermore, just because I am black or gay or latin or not a scientist, doesn't mean I am stupid and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Scientists always say 'science doesn't discriminate' because it is supposedly objective. That might be true if it were not humans who were doing the science! Science is done in a social context by humans, both male and female, who discriminate.

I am an entertainer and it is my job to look good! I don't lap-top dance. I am not a stripper or a prostitute. In fact, I exploit myself less than other physicists because I refuse to work on physics projects that I believe to be socially irresponsible and reprehensible. What human with any social conscience could work on the new generations of star wars weapons being developed NOW that will surely lead the world into a space -based weapons race? Shame on them! I'd much rather see a physicist strip than build a better laser weapon or smarter bomb.

I think I am an example of a person who has found a creative way to do physics while maintaining my individuality, my sense of humor and my political and social integrity. More importantly I think I serve as a role model to some young girls - I am a poster girl for people who think they are too stupid to do science or who say "math is hard." Look, if I can do physics, any one can do it - provided you are willing to work hard. Like so many kids I was a math phobic who didn't see the usefulness of learning math until I came to the realization that this is how our brain's work. We are math machines - I think we are much more than that - but a basic operating system of our brain is mathematical. Math is the language of science and if you want to understand yourself and nature, you have to speak the language. To not speak some math would be like living in a foreign country and never learning the language. How would you find the toilet? The museums? The doctor? How would you learn the nuances of social interaction? You would be confused and limited in your interaction and appreciation of the culture.

I've done all the course work for a Phd in physics but haven't done quals or a thesis. I think about going back and doing a thesis in science pedagogy or education but right now I'm focusing on developing science education and entertainment products for my company Science Entertainment. I am overflowing with content and product ideas and I can't fathom going back to school and slave on someone else's project. My intention has always been to learn enough to start making science media and entertainment and not to go the academic route. I always hoped that maybe one day I'd get an honorary doctorate. That would be the easiest for everyone! But if I were to go back to do a vanilla Phd in Physics I would definitely do it in quantum-gravity and I would do my thesis on the quantum vacuum cuz then I'd have a doctorate in Nothing and I think that would be really cool.

Every show is different one of the best was the Kipfest and for two reasons: 1. Kip is one of the greatest guys in the world and everyone was ready to have a good time and, 2. General Relativity is such a fantastic and sexy topic. I actually never studied GR in graduate school so it gave me an opportunity and motivation to do so.

Cosmic Cabaret are science cabaret-style variety shows produced and hosted by Lynda Williams as the Physics Chanteuse. The shows feature skits, songs, music, short movies, comedy acts and media on science and technology themes and are intended for a general audience. Cosmic Cabarets are held at different venues but currently are held at the SFSU Planetarium. Past venues include The El Rey Theater in LA and the Climate Theater in SF. Past performers include Joe Gizmo, Brian Malow, Ordinary Insect, Carl Winter and the Bungee Jumpn' Cows.

Science Entertainment is the name of my company and it is a term I invented to describe the content I produce. Although what I do is also educational, it is first and foremost entertaining. As they say, 'you can bring a horse to water but you can't make them drink!' so the first goal is to get folks to come to the trough of knowledge.

My sister and I own and operate Science Entertainment and we are producing several science media products that we sell on our website, scientainment.com. We are also selling works by other 'science entertainers' and will soon be producing works of other artists. We intend to build Science Entertainment into a cross-plat form, vertically integrated, multimedia science empire!!!

I am developing 2 collections of karaoke-style sing-along science cdroms - one on physics and one on astronomy. I am also going to launch 'scigirl.com' this summer. It will be the coolest science place for girls on the web. I am also developing many educational products that will be available soon online at our scientainment.com store. AAAS is coming to SF next year and I'm getting ready to entertain all the scientists that will be coming to my town! I am creating the Science Chanteuse for that!

David Bohm. He is certainly one of the reasons I went into physics. I came across DB via JR Krishnamurti in dialogue JR's book "Awakening of the Intelligence" long before I went into physics but I didn't realize who he was. BTW, JR is one of my favorite philosophers or wise old men. After I got into physics I read about Bohm in Ken Wilber's "Holographic Paradigm and other Paradoxes." It was very exciting to me because it was the first time I had seen a physicist try to explore metaphysics and questions I think are important such as the nature of human suffering and the nature of consciousness.

Most physicists think he was a 'wacko' for trying to bridge the topics but his physics is so solid that he couldn't be completely cast aside In fact, according to some physicists like Jack Sarfatti, Bohm has laid the foundation for a really new physics that will enable us to understand how consciousness is generated in the brain and with what Jack calls 'post quauntum non-mechanics'. Jack thinks this will allow us to use nanotechnology to generate 'AC', i.e., 'artificial consciousness' in quantum computers. It is all a spin off from de Broglie's pilot wave conjecture of yonder years, reborn again via Jack who is certainly my second most favorite physicist for very similar reasons.

Any way, as a graduate student you hear about Bohm briefly but he is not given the full credit he really deserves for being such an independent creative visionary maverick who made incredible strides in such issues as the measurement problem and the EPR paradox. I think he was shunned by the vanilla physics community because he dared to go against the Bohr church of quantum theory. Bohm carried on the philosophical torch of Einstein's objective realism that is contrary to Bohr's empircal 'Copenhagen' interpretation of QM. Indeed, if Bohr was the pope of QM (as said in the play 'Copenhagen') then Bohm was the anti-christ. This made Bohm a 'bad boy' in physics - not to mention being a wacko for hanging out with an Indian philosopher and being a communist.

I heard an interesting story about Bohm recently by Jean Pierre Vigier, a french physicist and old timer socialist. He said that during the McCarthy era Bohm lost his security clearance and was forced to flee to South America. Einstein helped him escape and Feynman came down to Brasil specially to see

Bohm. Bohm, Feynman and Vigier spent months together in Rio De Janeiro. After that Bohm moved to England. I think that this is where he came upon Krishnamurti. I don't know if there is any record of that. Well, that's a winded reply but Bohm is my favorite physicist because he dared to stand up against the flock and because he was a true independent spirit who maintained his social integrity while exploring what I think is the coolest question in physics: the connection between nature, consciousness and reality.

I think it is important to acknowledge that so-called 'pseudo-science' or mysticism and the occult gave birth to science - alchemy preceded chemistry. I think science and mysticism have a common quest to understand and control the universe but that they have different methodology for doing so - the scientific method and a pseudo-scientific method. They both believe in causality but they disagree on the forces of nature at play.

I think it is important to acknowledge that so-called 'pseudo-science' or mysticism and the occult gave birth to science - alchemy preceded chemistry. I think science and mysticism have a common quest and that is to understand the universe and have some power over nature but that they have different methodology for doing so - the scientific method and a pseudo-scientific method.

The science club has a severe language barrier and a 'smarter than thou' attitude that intimidates and excludes people whereas the pseudo-science club is much more accessible. This is not an accident. Scientists want to maintain control and pseudo-scientists want to sell stuff. Look, people want to participate in the exploration of the cosmic mysteries of the Universe - that is a natural and good curiosity - and astrology or mysticism is a much easier way to do it than differential calculus. And it is easy to participate in pseudo-science - just go buy some homeopathic remedy at the store! That is a lot easier than trying to find the Higgs particle!

People want to have opinions and express themselves but the mathematical language barrier of science often makes it impossible unless you are an expert. But it goes beyond just the math language barrier. Scientist don't want nonscientists to express opinions about the value of their work and I think the public's disinterest in pure research and the preponderance of voodoo science is a consequence of that exclusion.

Scientists want people to worship at the altar and pay their alms without having any say in what the priests are doing. NASA spends an enormous amount of money on PR and outreach to perpetuate its image of being holy and good when if fact there are many serious controversial issues with the organization that the public should weigh in on. Do we want to launch rockets with plutonium payloads over our heads? Do we want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a space station? What is the real scientific value of that over, say, national health care? Who will profit from all the so-called 'spin offs'? How is it tied into the push to put weapons in space? What about fusion energy? The human genome? People throw their hands up in despair and say "I'm not a rocket scientist. Math is hard." and they give their power away to the so-called 'experts' and go get their tarot cards read instead. This is a SERIOUS problem that is partially perpetuated by scientists themselves.

On one hand scientists want the public to support their projects but on the other hand, they don't want anyone but them deciding what they can do and in the process they have bitten off the hand that feeds them. The SSC is an example of this backfiring. I am trying to empower people - children, adults, teens, - to become scientifically literate so they can participate in the exploration and control of science. I think that is more of a threat than my wiggling around in a cocktail dress.