Welcome to

Peter Jedicke's Home Page

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You Can Get There From Here.

1. About me.
   • I was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1955.
   • I grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, where I attended James Morden Elementary School (where I was in Mr. Duggan's Grade 6 class), then Princess Margaret Senior Elementary School and Westlane Secondary School, where I was the school correspondent for the local newspaper.
   • I graduated from Western University (the University formerly known as UWO) in 1976, and finished my M.A. in Philosophy in 1997.
   • I live in London, Ontario , Canada.
   • I was a faculty member in the School of Language and Liberal Studies at Fanshawe College and retired in 2017.
   • The "family plot." Right now, asteroid (5899) Jedicke is here.


2. Astronomy-related links.
   • I was national President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada from 2004 to 2006 and now I am a Fellow of the RASC.
   • I am also Honorary President of the RASC London Centre. We hosted the General Assembly and AstroCATS in 2016 and participated as volunteers in the 2022 fall meeting of the Division of Planetary Science (DPS).
   • I helped start the list of asteroid names with Canadian connections.
   • My favourite astronomical topic, both astrophysically and as an observer, is globular clusters. Here's a database of the globular clusters that belong to the Milky Way galaxy. This is a picture of one of the prettiest.
   • My astronomical associate, David H. Levy, hosted a radio show where I was a guest.
   • In connection with the 2017 solar eclipse, I did some library research about how the previous total solar eclipse in London, Ontario, was reported in the local media.


3. Stuff I wrote that you can read.
   • Three books for teenagers — what they call in the U.S. "middle school" — in a series called "Hot Science:"
     1. Exploring the Ocean Depths: The Final Frontier
     2. Seti: The Search for Alien Intelligence
     3. Cosmology: Exploring the Universe
   • Three books that I edited for Scientific American in a series called "Extreme Science:"
     1. Transplanting Your Head And Other Feats of the Future
     2. Chasing the Ghost Bat And Other Mysteries of Nature
     3. The Highway of Light and Other Man-Made Wonders
   • I helped edit Scientific American's "The Big Idea" and "The Scientific American Book of the Cosmos", along with David H. Levy.
   • Notes on philosopher John Rawls' views on ethics, intended for non-philosophy students.
   • An article I wrote about the NRX Incident that happened at Chalk River back in the 1950s: https://www.cns-snc.ca/media/history/nrx.html
     The data table referred to in the article can be found here.
   • An article about UFOs that appeared in the London Free Press (October 14, 1995, page E1), explaining why I am skeptical about UFOs.
   • "Target: Earth"," an article about asteroids in space that might hit the Earth, that appeared in the London Free Press (November 26, 1994, page E1).
   • Queen's Quarterly published an article I wrote about "The Golden Meteorite."


4. Other interests.
   • The lovely new-old Mercedes. Fellow owners should look for me on the worldwide SL113 forums.
   • I have been rowing indoors since September, 1995. In 2009, I bought a Concept2 (Model D) and now I can row almost every day. I guess I should start training for next year!
   • Western Mustangs football. We were 2017 and 2021 Vanier Cup champions.
   • In the sixties, I read all the Tom Swift books and, yes, I was inspired by them.
   • One day, I want to have a huge N-gauge train set in my basement.
   • I am also very fond of the space program, chess, and wine.

Check here often as new features develop.
Last modified 2023-10-13