Dr. Roger A. Dana will be presenting a speech on “A Journey from the Bell Curve to the Big Bang” at MountVernon Presbyterian Church Sunday, Sept. 22, at 2 p.m.

All are welcome to attend this event. Pastor Lori Wunder said the congregation is committed to the belief that science and faith are not mutually exclusive.

The bell curve is ubiquitous in science as it accurately describes the outcomes of many experiments or observations directly or the statistics of measurement errors. It is particularly important in understanding the performance of communication, radar, and navigation systems, for example, as it described the statistics of ever-present radio noise.  On the journey from the bell curve to the Big Bang, we start with an empirical proof of the Central Limit Theorem, discuss radio noise (that annoying stuff you hear between radio stations if you have an old-style AM/FM radio), and then describe one of the most intriguing theorems in all of physics and engineering: Shannon’s limit on digital communications.

The journey continues to the dawn of satellites and space probes, when dreamers first thought of exploring our solar system. They were confronted with the reality of communications at long distances, Shannon’s limit, and radio noise. In their quest to find the lower limit to this noise, two researchers from Bell Labs measured the radio-frequency remnants of the Big Bang and received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery. That discovery was the first empirical evidence that the Big Bang actually happened and from a Christian perspective is evidence of God’s act of creation.

This talk is intended for anyone with curiosity about this connection. It focuses on the underlying concepts, not on the mathematics. It is also a lesson on the rigor and beauty of the scientific method that uncovers unexpected connections and deeper understandings.

Roger A Dana received a bachelor of science in applied mathematics and engineering physics from the University of Wisconsin Madison and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Stanford University. After grad school he worked for three years at Hughes Aircraft Company where he learned about radar and developed radar detection algorithms. The next 24 years were at Mission Research Corporation where he worked on trans-ionospheric RF propagation, channel models, and mitigation techniques for comm, nav, and radar systems.

During the last 15 years of employment, he was at the Advanced Technology Center of Collins Aerospace and worked on problems at the intersection of physics, mathematics, and electronic systems. He is now “retired,” working as a consultant in these technical areas.