LEWISTON, Maine -- Harvard University scientist Dudley R. Herschbach, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1986, will present two lectures at Bates College on (Wednesday) Oct. 2, as this year's visitor in the du Pont Eminent Scientists Seminar Series.

Herschbach will speak at 4 p.m. in Room 204 of Carnegie Science Hall on "Let There Be Light: The Genesis of Meteor Trails." His topic at 8 p.m. in Chase Hall Lounge will be "Imaginary Gardens and Real Toads: A Discussion of Scientific Literacy."

The public is invited to attend both talks at no charge.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, which he shared with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi for their work in reaction dynamics, Herschbach has won some of the highest honors of the scientific world, including the National Medal of Science and the Linus Pauling Medal. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and Britain's Royal Chemical Society.

Currently the Frank Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard, Herschbach has published more than 350 research papers. His current interests include intermolecular forces in liquids and a dimensional scaling approach to electronic structure.

The du Pont seminar series annually brings leading scientists to the Bates campus to deliver both a technically oriented seminar and a more broadly oriented lecture. Previous participants in the series have included Nobel laureates Linus Pauling and Sherwood Rowland.

The program is funded in part by a grant from E.I. du pont de Nemours & Co. and is sponsored by the Department of Chemistry at Bates.