A List
2/25/08

Event At SLU Celebrates Physics Prof's Book About Faith

CANTON - The Friends of Owen D. Young and Launders Science Libraries will hold a celebration for the publication of the book The Sky Is Not A Ceiling: An Astronomer's Spiritual Discovery by St. Lawrence University Priest Associate Professor of Physics Aileen O'Donoghue on Friday, February 29, at 4 p.m. in the Josephine Young Room of Owen D. Young Library. O'Donoghue will speak at the event, which is open to the public, free of charge.

The book, published in 2007 by Orbis Books, is the story of O'Donoghue's personal spiritual journey, as she struggles to answer the question, "what's out there?" Her discoveries are both scientific and mystical, certain and mysterious. The Sky Is Not A Ceiling is a mix of science and spirituality that goes beyond religion, and beyond the new physics, to a universe without limits.

A regular guest on National Public Radio, O'Donoghue also writes for Living Faith and contributed the "Mountain Skies" column in Adirondac, the magazine of the Adirondack Mountain Club. She earned her associate's degree from Colorado Mountain College, her bachelor's degree from Fort Lewis College, and a master's degree and Ph.D. from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology; she has been on the faculty at St. Lawrence since 1988.

O'Donoghue spent the 2001-2002 academic year on sabbatical at the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, Arizona, and has been a visiting associate professor of astronomy at Cornell University. In 2001, she participated in the physics and cosmology group of the Science and the Spiritual Quest discussions sponsored by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Paris. O'Donoghue also serves on the board of directors of the Adirondack Public Observatory.

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More: Read the first chapter of The Sky Is Not A Ceiling (.pdf Format)

Science at St. Lawrence