The Annual Tesla Dinner was held at the Parmelia Hilton Hotel in Perth two days after Nikola Tesla’s birthday on 12th of July 2008. The dinner was organised for the 5th consecutive year as part of the Tesla Day celebrations in Western Australia. In his introductory presentation Dr Wally Knezevic recapped Tesla Forum’s achievements over the past year and announced an initiative to establish a scholarship for post-graduate students in science and engineering. Dr David Blair The WA Scientist of the year 2007 and Professor from the University of WA was the guest speaker on the night. His presentation on gravity waves has given us all great pleasure and a better appreciation of the subject – gravity waves are ripples through space-time caused by moving objects. Gravity waves were predicted by Einstein in his theory of general relativity, but have never been detected. If detected, astronomers will no longer be limited by how far they can see into space and they would be able to hear gravity waves generated by huge masses such as pairs of neutron stars, the formation of black holes and even rumblings from the big bang itself. Dr Blair remarked how Tesla was one of the first to harness electromagnetic waves and the task to harness gravity waves is and will be preoccupation of scientists today and in the future. He made interesting observations on the complementary roles of science and religion, talked on the impact the scientist’s ego may have when reviewing their own results … All in all, it was a very entertaining lecture. The evening was full of good spirit, great music and dance. The Quiz on Tesla was very entertaining and it ignited some healthy rivalry between the tables. The winning table was awarded with a bottle of champagne, which was popped the same evening. The Door prize lottery created additional excitement and went to one of the musicians from “ZigaTango”. The prize was a big hamper of goodies donated by the “Kings Coffee”, Harrison St, Balcatta. One of the highlights of the evening was a performance by two exceptional music groups, “Skadarlija” playing traditional Serbian music and “ZigaTango” – a fantastic group of technical science students playing the Tango, Gipsy as well as music from the Balkans. The music performances prompted hot dance floor action! The dinner was a great success. We would like to thank all those who came and supported the Tesla Forum’s efforts: Dr Blair, our musicians for their exciting performances and the Tesla Forum’s organizers, in particular our charming MC and coordinator Smiljka Dimitrijevic.
Pre dinner drinks
