The curtain goes up this week on a new play, in which an art historian and scientist dispute the age of a famous bronze sculpture. Join Ira in this hour for a conversation with chemist and playwright Carl Djerassi about his new work, " Phallacy." We'll also talk with the real-life scientist who served as a model for one of the roles in the play, and with the actor who portrays that scientist on stage.

Plus, can number crunching determine whether art is authentic? We'll talk with a scientist who says that a technique called 'stylometry' may be able to distill the essence of an artist's technique down to a set of geometric data points. He met this week with representatives of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Can the technique determine whether a purported 'van Gogh' was really painted by the master? We'll run the numbers. Call in with your questions and comments at 1-800-989-8255 (3-4 Eastern). Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection.

Web Extras:

Watch SciFri in the Studio - Clip from Broadcast
Watch clip from Phallacy
Watch Carl Djerassi

Guests:
Richard Johnson
Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

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Carl Djerassi
Playwright and Author, "Phallacy"
Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry
Stanford University
Stanford, California

Simon Jones
Actor, plays Professor Rex Stolzfuss in "Phallacy"
New York, New York

Alfred Vendl
Chemist
University of Applied Arts
Vienna, Austria

Books/Articles Discussed:

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This segment produced by Karin Vergoth