Just like the ''Professor'' of TV's ''Gilligan's Island,'' physicist and space colony proponent Freeman J. Dyson hasn't gotten us off this isolated space island called Earth yet, but it's not for lack of ideas.
Dyson, a highly regarded theoretical physicist from Princeton, has made a hobby of theorizing about galactic colonization. He has suggested the development of ''warm-blooded'' plants to sustain life in space, the linking of comets outside Jupiter's orbit to build a galactic colony and solar-collecting mirrors to trap energy.
The ideas have been presented in a prodigious stream of Dyson books, articles and lectures read by scientists and laymen alike. He insists something's bound to work, perhaps by 2085. Today at 4 p.m. in the University Chapel, Dyson delivers the university's charter lecture: ''Gravity is Cool: Or, Why Our Universe is Hospitable to Life.''
Conceding that genetically engineered ''greenhouse plants'' are only a theory and space colonization highly speculative, Dyson is convinced our grandchildren or great grandchildren could end their days clambering around a space colony.
''No law of physics or biology forbids cheap travel all over the solar system and beyond,'' he wrote in a 1997 essay in Atlantic Monthly.
These days, it's hard to know whether Dyson's science publishing garners as much attention as his popular theories on life outside the Earth's atmosphere.
''It might be the other way around,'' said Todd Baker, head of the UGA physics department.
Dyson, an Englishman and 1945 Cambridge graduate who went on to work with J. Robert Oppenheimer and to join Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, has the mental tools to envision a viable future outside Earth's atmosphere.
His research on the foundations of quantum electrodynamics influenced many branches of theoretical physics, and he is also respected for work in nuclear engineering, rocket technology, climate studies and astrophysics. Quantum electrodynamics is the study of the movement and behavior of subatomic particles.
Among Dyson's other ideas regarding space travel: using the gravitational field of a binary star as a ''slingshot'' to provide fuel-free power for space vehicles and creating automatons to mine ice from Saturn's moons to irrigate the arid Mars landscape. He was involved in an actual effort to send a manned, nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars before the government scuttled the Orion Project in the 1950s. His idea of a space colony ringing Jupiter was brought to life in Larry Nivens' popular novel ''Ring World.''
''It's always interesting to hear what he's got to say,'' said Jeffrey Templon, assistant UGA physics professor and adviser to undergraduate physics majors. ''He's an idea guy. I found out later in life that a lot of the ideas I read about in science fiction were actually based on Dyson's ideas.''
Dyson is going strong at age 76, as his schedule in Georgia suggests. Monday night, he dined with three of the university's brightest physics majors, and today, his itinerary on campus includes breakfast with the UGA Foundation Fellows, a mathematics seminar and a session with freshmen who have been studying ''Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics'' in a seminar led by Baker.
''The word I got is he really enjoys interacting with students,'' Baker said.
Dyson, past chairman of the Federation of American Scientists, has presented his futuristic theories in such popular books as ''Disturbing the Universe,'' ''Weapons and Hope,'' ''Origins of Life'' and ''Infinite in All Directions.'' He has received numerous honors including the American Institute of Physics' Heineman Prize, the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize and the Max Planck Medal.
The charter lecture was started in 1988 and brings speakers to discuss ideas of general importance or interest.
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