The Balloon concept is that the Balloon is a 'test balloon' of a relatively new research idea or result or proposed-work that is launched by the speaker to his/her colleagues and to undergrad/grad students to see if the research ideas represented in the balloon can 'fly'.
Personally, I don't really know what other people in our Department are working on. This is the main thing that we want to try to improve with The Afternoon Balloons seminar series. This seminar series 'The Afternoon Balloons' is adapted from the Noon Balloon seminar series at the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, where I used to work. That Department at the University of Chicago was a rather diverse department (much like our own) and included research groups in climate science, paleontology, geophysics, cosmochemistry, glaciology, tectonics, etc.
We plan to have several other seminars in The Afternoon Balloons seminar series during the Sommersemester. The dates are May 5, May 19, June 2, June 16, June 30, July 7 (All Mondays).
We do plan to schedule some of The Afternoon Balloons to happen at the Institute of Meteorology.
Alessandro Airo is an official co-organizer of The Afternoon Balloons. We have also had unofficial/informal organizational help from a number of other people in our Department.
Do you know other people, young or old, who might want to attend The Afternoon Balloons?
Can you tell them about The Afternoon Balloons, and try to persuade them to participate?