Demystifying the Expert happened and delighted us again, and the expert, together with the hosts (Constantin and Feitosa) as well as the panel of comedians, delivered what they promised: a great night of laughter and learning. To remind everybody, this program brings together a guest speaker, who is an expert in a certain field of science, and comedians from JMU’s New & Improv’d, who attempt to “demystify the expert.” Questions, games, trivia and improvised skits all contribute to the fun as the audience learns about the expert’s work. Examples of previous Demystifying the Expert events have been discussed here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On February 8, 2018, the Demystifying the Expert event hosted Dr. Gabriel Niculescu, a nuclear physicist. The members of JMU’s New and Imrpov’d who (we can say hilariously and successfully) demystified were: Diego Salinas, a senior theater and modern foreign language double major, Michael Mathis, a junior SMAD major, and Mairin Duffy, a sophomore SMAD major.
The first game aimed at determining what the expert studied via no more than twenty questions aimed at yes or no answers from the expert. Each comedian took quite a few turns asking the Dr. Niculescu before they discovered that he is a nuclear physicist. As you can see from the pictures, Dr. Niculescu had a blast.
The second game was the fill-in-the-blank game, during which the comedians guess words that complete titles of articles that relate to Dr. Niculescu’s research.
The first title was “Big Bang machine could destroy ____,” and the comedians were quickly able to guess that the missing word for this title was “Earth.” The next article title was in relation to the Higgs Boson, which Diego Salinas was very excited to know the answer to, almost as soon as the question was asked.
With the next game, the JAG (jargon and acronym) game, the comedians guessed and discussed what: baking, swimming, PID, RICH, and SLAM mean in the context of nuclear physics. Check out the podcast for these illuminating discussions.
Finally, with one of the funniest and most full of surprises section of the show, the audience got to learn more about the expert outside of his life as a scientist with the Two Truths and a Lie game. During this game, the comedians and the audience learned that Dr. Niculescu is a certified breeder of guppies and has won the guppy World Champion twice and received the runner-up award four times. They also learned about his brother who is a famous actor and musician in Romania, and about the math and physics high school that the expert attended while growing up.
The night ended with the most awaited part, the skit in which the comedians played out a scenario in the life of Dr. Niculescu, which involved a lot of references to karaoke and a bar, and earned the comedians plenty of laughs from the audience. Fun and fulfilling times we all had again!
