Dr. Fred Schlachter is a scientist, traveler, diver, woodworker, and a frequent lecturer throughout the world, primarily on topics related to energy and transportation.

Fred is physicist retired from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He worked on research studying atoms with high-tech tools, including particle accelerators and lasers. He is a co-author of a national report on energy efficiency, and a specialist on electrification of transportation. And he has worked as a policy analyst for the American Physical Society Office of Public Affairs, and on the City of Berkeley Energy Commission.

He has been a visiting professor at many well-known universities, and a frequent lecturer on a wide variety of topics. He has taught physics for lay people at OLLI (“Physics of Everyday Life: Understanding the News”), given many camp-fire talks at Lair of the Bear (Fred: “I especially like questions from children”), published in professional and lay media (including Scientific American), and is particularly well known for a controversial opinion piece published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science: “There is no Moore’s Law for Batteries.” (Note: this is true, there is no Moore’s Law for batteries.)

He has additionally been an advisor to the Thailand Center for Excellence in Physics; he is presently studying Thai language.
Among his favorite topics for lectures: our energy future, emphasizing electric cars and renewable resources; why people do not believe in science; the role of transformational technology in our lives; why the sky is blue during the day, red at sunset, and black on the
moon; the nature of light—a users’ guide to the universe; and the formation of color in nature.