Thebe Medupe
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Thebe Rodney Medupe 1973 is a South African astrophysicist and founding director of Astronomy Africa. He is perhaps best known for his work on the Cosmic Africa project that attempts to reconcile science and myth.[1][2]
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[edit] Biography
Rodney Thebe Medupe grew up in a poor village outside Mmabatho, without electricity, lights or television, where he sat near the fire under the African sky, listening to the elders tell traditional Setswana stories. But his family sacrificed to send him to a fine, modern high school in Mmabatho, where modern western science and mathematics captured his imagination. Halley's comet inspired Thebe to build a crude telescope with a cardboard tube and lenses donated by a school lab technician. On an unforgettable chilly, windy night, he pointed his telescope at the moon, and found himself looking at mountains, plains and craters on another world.
What disturbed Thebe in his last year of high school and afterward was that so many of his friends believed that the African way of life was inferior, that learning western ideas meant Africa had little to offer. Later, after winning the regional Science Olympiad, studying at UCT and in Denmark, and becoming a researcher at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), his interest in Africa's heritage led him to join the Cosmic Africa project in exploring the ways that the lives of Africans past and present intersected with the heavens; he is presenter and associate producer of the feature film Cosmic Africa.
He received his doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Cape Town for a thesis that studied the theoretical physics of oscillations in stellar atmospheres. In particular, he investigated the interaction of radiative transfer and pulsations in the atmospheres of stars by solving non-adiabatic pulsation equations. He works as a researcher at SAAO and teaches at the University of North West where he leads the recently formed theoretical astrophysics programme in the Physics Department. His other interests involve a study of African ethno-astronomy with a view to use this to attract black students into astronomy and science in general.
[edit] Cultural Astronomy Research
Dr. Medupe is a principle investigator on a South Africa led collaboration with Mali to digitize and analyze science documents found in the Timbuktu Libraries. He is co-editor of the recently published "African Cultural Astronomy: Current Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy in Africa" published by Springer Verlag. An article about the Timbuktu findings appears in the volume.
[edit] Cosmic Africa
[3] "Not long ago, Africa was a land without borders and fences. The earth, water and sky were its natural boundaries. There was power in the sky, a time when ancient skywatchers looked to the heavens for meaning, guidance and inspiration ... In many parts of Africa today, the sacred alliance between the earth and sky is still replayed ..." From the Cosmic Africa project summary
Africa's traditions, legends and stories about the sky are about to begin reaching a world audience. Dr. Thebe Medupe of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) and the University of the North-West worked with filmmakers Craig and Damon Foster (known for their award winning The Great Dance), together with project originator Anne Rogers and her co-worker Carina Rubin of Aland Pictures, to produce a panorama of Africa's mythic and practical interaction with the cosmos.
On Monday 13 January 2003, Medupe and others in the project flew to Washington DC for a special preview showing on 16 January. Later this year, invited guests will attend a South African preview of Cosmic Africa at a special screening in Cape Town.
[edit] African Skies, African People
Anyone who has been stunned by a starfilled Karoo night will have no trouble seeing why Africans paid attention to the sky, and made it part of their story. People who lived close to the earth and the changing seasons naturally used the stars, the sun and the moon to keep track of time and times: the time to plant, the time to hunt, the time for ritual that renewed the ties between people and nature.
Africans told stories about the sky, and saw giraffes, lions and zebras among the stars as naturally as people elsewhere saw bears and horses. It was also in Africa that the pyramids and the far more ancient Nabta stones were painstakingly aligned with the heavens, tying the cosmos and man together.
To sample the richness of African traditions and achievements, Thebe Medupe and the filmmakers travelled around South Africa and to Mali, Egypt and Namibia, learning from the local people and sharing modern perspectives.
[edit] Backing and Prospects
Initial seed money for a promotional video came from the South African departments of Arts and Culture and Science and Technology. Backing from American-based Cosmos studios (best known for Carl Sagan's documentary series, Cosmos) made it possible for Anne Rogers and Carina Rubin to begin a research journey stretching from Namibia to the deserts and crocodile-infested lakes of northern Kenya, to the cliff dwellings of the Dogon of Mali, through the steamy coast and jungles of Ghana, to people's earliest astronomical monuments in the Egyptian Sahara.
[edit] Personal
Thebe Medupe is the son of Mothibi and Dimakatso Medupe. He is married to Winnie Ditobo and they have a son and daughter. His favourite music is jazz of the 40s, 50s and 60s, as well as West African music.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Reardon, C. African Stars in Ford Foundation Report, Winter 2004 accessed at [1] March 29, 2007.
- ^ Schieb, R. Cosmic Africa (Documentary - South Africa) (review) in Variety (magazine) Nov 18, 2003 accessed at [2] March 29, 2007.
