21 December 2005

Longwood administrator to appear on TV program Jan. 6

Dr. Charles Ross, Longwood University’s interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will appear on the television program Battlefield Detectives on The History Channel on Friday, Jan. 6, at 11 p.m.

The episode examines the battle of Shiloh, one of the bloodiest battles of Civil War, and includes an acoustics experiment that Dr. Ross conducted in September at Fort Frederick State Park near Hagerstown, Md. As a physics professor, Dr. Ross is an expert on how acoustical anomalies affected command decisions in the Civil War.

“I did an experiment showing the effects of foliage on outdoor sounds and discussed how that that may have been a factor at Shiloh,” said Dr. Ross, who chaired the Department of Natural Sciences before becoming interim dean in July.

Dr. Ross appeared on a Battlefield Detectives segment about Gettysburg that first aired in December 2004 and was broadcast again Nov. 14. That interview took place at that battlefield.

Dr. Ross is the author of two books, Civil War Acoustic Shadows and Trial by Fire: Science, Technology and the Civil War.