From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan,

where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored,

this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

So I experienced the 2017 North American Total Solar Eclipse, and it was amongst the most moving several minutes of my life.

If you're in totality, you get this brief up to about four minute period of time where

the sun is entirely blocked by the moon, and you can look at it.

This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the

Hillsdale College podcast network. That was Dr. Timothy Dulch, Associate Professor of Physics at Hillsdale College.

He will prepare us for the upcoming solar eclipse on Monday. Dr. Dolch, thanks so much for

joining us. Thanks for having me, Scott. And we bring our resident astronomer in to discuss the upcoming,

depending on when you're listening, but upcoming total eclipse of the sun, which is

happening Monday, April 8th in the afternoon hours across the U.S. So we spend some time today

talking about what it is and how people can watch and what kind of research can be done.

That's very big for you, I know. So start with that definition.

Tell people, you know, what is a solar eclipse? How often do they happen? And how often does one like

this one on Monday happen? An eclipse in general is when some celestial object blocks another one.

And in the case of a solar eclipse,

it's when the moon blocks the sun.

And the moon is always casting a shadow from the sun,

just as the earth is.

But it's one of those moments when the Earth

passes into that shadow cast by the moon. And those happen actually every several years,

...