SPORTS ,L
Tough day at the meet i|
Emotions ran high at the Big 12 Cross Country
Championships as Colorado won the men’s race pl|l
and Kansas State won the women’s. PAGE 10 WWml
A&E
Still painting
UNL graduate Laura Nothem opens an exhibi
tion of bold and colorful still lifes this week at
Gallery 9 in the Haymarket. PAGE 12
MON »AY
November 2, 1998
Blame It on the Rain
Showers, high 50. More raiatonight, low 40.
Huskers
somber
after loss
By Sam McKewon
Senior editor
Nobody's perfect.
Nebraska senior tight end Sheldon
Jackson said so after NU s 28-21 loss to
Texas A&M, which ended the Huskers'
unbeaten streak at 1 8. Eventually
Nebraska had to lose.
But nobody expected this. Not a
loss at Memorial Stadium, where the
Nebraska had won 47 straight games.
Not a loss to an unranked. 18-point
underdog. And good Lord not to Texas,
especially with NU wanting revenge for
its loss in the 1996 Big 12
Championship.
Well, the whole house party came
crashing down Saturday in the form of a
20-16 loss to the Longhorns, the second
time UT has beaten NU in three sea
It ended a 47-game home winning
streak at Memorial Stadium and possi
bly signaled an end to Nebraska’s
supremacy in the conference and on the
national stage. For the first tune since
1992, Nebraska dropped out of the top
10 in The Associated Press poll. With
two conference losses, the Huskers are
behind four teams in the Big 12.
Stunned fans, players and coaches
were left wondering what happened to
the 1998 season and whether or not the
Huskers can regain their lofty status as
one of college football's elite teams.
“I feel like I've let so many guys
down, guys I don’t even know who
started this streak at home,” NU senior
rush end Chad Kelsay said.
“This is our house, and you don't
want someone to come in here and beat
you. That’s what they did today.”
Scott McClurg/DN
NEBRASKA OFFENSIVE LINEMAN Dominic Raiola can’t watch the last minutes of the Huskers’ 20-16 loss to
the Texas Longhorns Saturday at Memorial Stadium. Saturday marked the first game the Huskers lost at
Memorial Stadium in more than seven years.
Students 'interview' Einstein via computer
By Brian Carlson
Staff writer
Albert Einstein, world-famous
physicist and developer of the theory
of relativity, visited the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln last week to field
questions from students about his life
and work.
“An hour sitting with a pretty girl
on a park bench seems like a minute,”
he said, explaining his famous theory.
“A minute sitting on a hot stove seems
like an hour. That’s relativity."
Actually, although Einstein postu
lated that time was relative, he didn't
arrive in Lincoln via a time warp.
Einstein, who died in 1955, “spoke" to
students through a “synthetic inter
view" process developed by Scott
Stevens and others at Carnegie Mellon
University.
Stevens, a former UNL assistant
physics professor, demonstrated his
synthetic interview with Einstein to
students last week for Master’s Week
at UNL.
Stevens and other researchers
pored over Einstein's writings and
speeches, seeking to find answers to
questions commonly asked about
Einstein. When they had compiled the
material, they asked an actor to don a
disheveled white wig and recite four
hours’ worth of Einstein's sayings.
The actor was videotaped, and the
footage was stored on a computer.
Then the researchers developed a
voice recognition system so that peo
ple could speak into a microphone and
“ask” questions of Einstein. The com
puter attempts to recognize what is
being asked, then searches for an
Einstein saying that answers the ques
tion.
Asked for his opinions about
Newton, the theory of relativity and
quantum mechanics, Einstein
launched into involved commentaries
u
I do not know how the third world war will
be fought, but I know how the fourth will:
with sticks and stones
Albert Einstein
scientist
on the continuing relevance of
Newton’s laws of motion, the differ
ence between special and general rela
tivity and what he called the misappli
cation of the quantum theory.
Einstein also discussed the rela
tionship between science and religion.
”1 believe in Spinoza's God... not a
God w ho concerns himself in the fate
of human beings,” he said. “But sci
ence without religion is lame; religion
without science is blind."
Einstein said one of his greatest
mistakes was signing a letter to
President Roosevelt recommending
that the United States develop the
atomic bomb, given nuclear weapons’
capacity to destroy civilization.
'‘I do not know how the third world
war will be fought, but I know how the
fourth will: with sticks and stones,” he
said.
But he said he thought he could be
forgiven considering the possibility
Please see EINSTEIN on 3
Massacre
rumors
find roots
in legend
■ The Halloween weekend
passes without a rumored
Big 12 sorority mass killing.
By Lindsay Young
Senior staff writer
It sounded like a cheesy plot tor a
new Wes Craven slasher, complete
with sorority girls, a Halloween set
ting and those gullible enough to eat
up every word.
Rumors of a sorority house mas
sacre sent many members running
scared when the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln became part of the
script this weekend.
The plot thickened this way:
A psychic guest on “The Oprah
Winfrey Show” predicted a massacre
would happen in a sorority house at a
Big 12 school over Halloween week
end.
The psychic was the same one
who predicted the Oklahoma City
bombing and the Holocaust, and
some say even the Heaven's Gate
mass suicide.
And, gossipers said with a
straight face, the killer was to be
dressed as Little Bo Peep.
Although no one could recall
having seen the “Oprah” episode fea
turing the psychic, several UNL
sorority houses were nearly vacated
by Saturday night.
An ironic twist to the rumor - no
such guest ever appeared on the
show, said an Oprah Winfrey publi
cist.
Even those who didn’t believe the
3
prophesy fled anyway.
Psychotic copycats may feel
compelled to make the prediction
come true, they reasoned. Some stu
dents said they just didn’t know what
to believe and didn't want to take a
riel'
University police confirmed that
no massacres occurred over the
weekend. All in all, things were pret
ty quiet, University Police Chief Ken
Cauble said.
Police took reports of a few cam
pus incidents they think are related to
the rumor.
Someone wrote in chalk in front
of a sorority house, “Little Bo Peep is
going to come kill her sheep.” A hand
print was made with ketchup on a
window at that same house. Cauble
said.
Like the vandalism, the entire
story was a mere prank - on a nation
wide scale.
The story started back in 1968 in
the Midwest, as part of what is called
Please see MASSACRE on 3
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