Joseph A. Schwarcz

Additional recommended knowledge

Recognize and detect the effects of electrostatic charges on your balance

Essential Laboratory Skills Guide

Daily Visual Balance Check

Dr. Joseph A. Schwarcz, known to his students, and many via his science popularization efforts as Dr. Joe, is a doctor of chemistry and professor at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He is the director of McGill's Office for Science & Society which is dedicated to demystifying science for the public.

He is known through his many books, weekly column in the Montreal Gazette , weekly radio show on CJAD 800 in Montreal and CFRB 1010 in Toronto, and frequent segments on the Discovery Channel Canada. He has also had a show on Discovery Canada in the past (Science to Go).

Dr. Joe is of Hungarian birth. He is well known for his informative and entertaining public lectures on topics ranging from household chemicals to the chemistry of love. Dr. Joe formerly taught at Vanier College, and there established a series of courses designed to bring chemistry to the common student, and later to the general public through public lectures. This was then replicated at McGill University. Dr. Joe is an amateur magician and often describes how "supernatural feats" can be done by ordinary means, with a scientific explanation to boot. Uri Geller, the mentalist, is a common target for debunking. He is the winner of the American Chemical Society's James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for interpreting chemistry to the public. In 1992, he was the co-winner of the Royal Society of Canada's McNeil Medal, awarded for the public awareness of science.

Selected bibliography

• An Apple A Day: The Myths, Misconceptions and Truths About the Foods We Eat (2007, ISBN 978-0-00-200764-1)
• Let Them Eat Flax: 70 All-New Commentaries on the Science of Everyday Food & Life (2005, ISBN 1-55022-698-3)
• The Fly in the Ointment: 70 Fascinating Commentaries on the Science of Everyday Life (2004, ISBN 1-55022-621-5)
• That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles: 62 All-New Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life (2004, ISBN 1-55022-520-0)
• The Genie in the Bottle: 68 All New Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life (2001, ISBN 1-55022-442-5)
• Radar, Hula Hoops, and Playful Pigs: 67 Digestible Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life (2001, ISBN 0-8050-7407-4)

See also

• Bill Nye
• Carl Sagan
• David Suzuki
• The Amazing Randi

• Ariel Fenster, fellow colleague and science populizer at McGill and also formerly Vanier

• public presentations in London, Ontario
• NIST Best Practices presentation by Dr. Joe
• Dr. Joe's series on Discovery Channel Canada