Cosmos - With Neil deGrasse Tyson

[Owain Taggart]

I loved the visual of seeing Tyson in a dinghy floating inside a neutrino detector! That was both awesome and beautiful.

Locally, we have a Neutrino Observatory and I'd been invited to visit several times as part of a group thing with our astronomy club, but I've never gone, but those who have say it's an interesting experience. The lab itself had concluded its main experiment several years ago and shifted to a different kind of experiment, but it's one of the few Neutrino Observatories in the world.

 

[Christopher]

Well, it's written by the same people 34 years later. A writer's style can change a lot in that time. Few would say that, ohh, Arthur C. Clarke's or Isaac Asimov's work in the 1980s was comparable to their work in the 1950s.

And the original's episodes did bounce around from one topic to another -- for instance, "Travelers' Tales" covered subjects ranging from the Dutch East India Company to the Voyager probes. Maybe this feels more disjointed because of the commercial breaks between segments?

 

[Hober Mallow]

I didn't know there were conveyor belts and ferris wheel-shaped machines in green plants. Imagine that.

Interesting, though, how old the light really is that we feel when we're standing in sunlight. Ten million years + 8 minutes is a heckuva long trip!

Not to the photon. To the photon the trip is instantaneous.

 

[Admiral2]

Oh, and get this: Turns out the Ship of the Imagination was designed by Ryan Church, who also designed J.J. Abrams's Enterprise.

So, one hit (S.o.t.I.) and one miss by ten miles (JJprise.) it happens to the best designers.

 

[Mudd]

So far, Macfarlane and Tyson and Braga are doing a lot of the former and not much of the latter IMAO.

You mean Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, and Tyson are doing that.

Whomever. Crossing the "T"s is irrelevant to the point.

 

[Christopher]

So far, Macfarlane and Tyson and Braga are doing a lot of the former and not much of the latter IMAO.

You mean Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, and Tyson are doing that.

Whomever. Crossing the "T"s is irrelevant to the point.

Irrelevant? Your post was a criticism of the choices being made by the creators of the show. So it's absolutely relevant to know which creators are responsible for those choices in the first place.

It's also deeply unfair to Ann Druyan to ignore her central role in the creation of this show. Talking about Cosmos without acknowledging Druyan as a creator is like talking about Firefly without acknowledging Joss Whedon. Cosmos -- either series -- would not have existed without Ann Druyan. I'm tired of people overlooking that just because she's not as famous as the Trek guy or the Family Guy guy.

 

[gturner]

Regarding Einstein and relativity, I prefer Sagan's version where he illustrated what happens if one brother goes off on a near-light speed trip and the other stays behind; the stay-behind ages decades while the light-speed tripper ages only minutes.

But if motion and velocity are all relative, why does the twin who stayed home get older, instead of the twin who left? Relative to the wandering twin, it's the stay-at-home who is traveling near light-speed, and since positions and paths are all just relative we shouldn't be able to say which twin ages quickly relative to the other.

So they called that a paradox, and Einstein had to go back and solve it.

 

[Mudd]

You mean Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, and Tyson are doing that.

Whomever. Crossing the "T"s is irrelevant to the point.

Irrelevant? Your post was a criticism of the choices being made by the creators of the show. So it's absolutely relevant to know which creators are responsible for those choices in the first place.

No, Christopher, it's not.

The choices are the choices. The result is the show. The question is the quality of the show itself.

Not one person in one hundred thousand who watches the show and either learns something (or doesn't) or returns to the show (or doesn't) has any idea at all who put it together. That's the reality of mass entertainment - or mass education, or infotainment or whatever this version of "Cosmos" actually is.

One may choose to either address that or not address it, but nitpicking a statement instead of doing so is neither relevant to the question nor interesting.

 

[gturner]

^ You're skipping an opportunity to poke fun.

Viewer 1: "What's up with this episode? Were they high when they wrote this one?!"
Viewer 2: "Well, funny you should ask. You see, this one was written by the former president of the pot lobby, and..."
Viewer 1: "Oh, I see. So that's why it said we should imagine a little tiny atom, and like that atom is sort of it's own universe, and like that universe contains an atom that contains another universe, and...."
Viewer 2: "Yeah."
Viewer 1: "Groovy."

 

[Mudd]

^ You're skipping an opportunity to poke fun.

Viewer 1: "What's up with this episode? Were they high when they wrote this one?!"
Viewer 2: "Well, funny you should ask. You see, this one was written by the former president of the pot lobby, and..."
Viewer 1: "Oh, I see. So that's why it said we should imagine a little tiny atom, and like that atom is sort of it's own universe, and like that universe contains an atom that contains another universe, and...."
Viewer 2: "Yeah."
Viewer 1: "Groovy."

Viewer 2: "And maybe there's like, I dunno, little factories in there."

 

[Christopher]

Not one person in one hundred thousand who watches the show and either learns something (or doesn't) or returns to the show (or doesn't) has any idea at all who put it together. That's the reality of mass entertainment - or mass education, or infotainment or whatever this version of "Cosmos" actually is.

One may choose to either address that or not address it, but nitpicking a statement instead of doing so is neither relevant to the question nor interesting.

Maybe you find the worth of individual human beings and their achievements uninteresting and irrelevant. But I disagree, and I would hope that most others would disagree. I think people matter and deserve recognition for their work.

Indeed, isn't that one of the main things that this series is about? That what matters isn't just the facts of science, but the people whose insight and dedication and humanity made those discoveries possible? The whole show is about personalizing science, making it a human story rather than a set of cold facts -- both by letting us know and care about the people behind the discoveries and by showing us how those discoveries and principles relate to our everyday lives. The first Cosmos was actually subtitled A Personal Journey -- and Carl Sagan wasn't the only one it was personal to. This sequel has a different subtitle, but it's just as personal in its own way.

So if you think acknowledging individuals as people is irrelevant or uninteresting, then you've completely missed the point of the whole series. If it's worth talking about how an impoverished apprentice grew up to make the discovery on which all of modern astrophysics is based, or how Edmund Halley's commitment and friendship to Isaac Newton was pivotal to getting the foundational work of modern physics published, then it's worth acknowledging that Ann Druyan is the principal creator of this show.

 

[Mudd]

You know, if I were looking to assign blame for the show's defects I'd be more interested in who's responsible - but I'm not. Therefore, your customary condescending games of Gotcha! don't move me in this instance.

Do you actually think that whoever put this together is doing as good a job as Sagan did? Do you think this show is furthering the cause of science education particularly well? Why or why not?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I think we can all at least agree that Cosmos is a cool name for a science show.

 

[Mudd]

I think we can all at least agree that Cosmos is a cool name for a science show.

Who thought of it, Sagan? Does that affect the coolness factor one way or the other?

Do you see my point about the show, or do you disagree? For example, I was struck during the animated sequence in which Stewart voiced Herschel that a lot of "Golly Gosh!" statements were being thrown around - "We're looking at the ghosts of stars," etc - and that Herschel was being credited with some really important insights with absolutely no attempt being made to describe how he arrived at those discoveries.

The Herschel animations in particular were reminiscent of these PBS ads that make a point about superficial presentations of history:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHoeTHXF4lY[/yt]


In this series any explanation of the methods of science and discovery seems to be given short shrift in favor of heroic declarations about the reliability of those methods. That's peculiar and frustrating.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I think we can all at least agree that Cosmos is a cool name for a science show.

Well, I think it all depends on who created the name, because you know, individual humans are important.

I kid. Greek is a cool language and Cosmos is a cool word.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I think we can all at least agree that Cosmos is a cool name for a science show.

Who thought of it, Sagan? Does that affect the coolness factor one way or the other?

I like how he says "cosmos." That's good enough for me.

Anyone who disagrees probably loves Hitler, though.

I think we can all at least agree that Cosmos is a cool name for a science show.

Well, I think it all depends on who created the name, because you know, individual humans are important.

I kid. Greek is a cool language and Cosmos is a cool word.

Sure, but what have the Greeks done for us lately?

 

[Gov Kodos]

Sure, completely ignore the Minoans, everyone else does. Besides, all the best Greek stuff was done by the Ionians anyway.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I think we can all at least agree that Cosmos is a cool name for a science show.

Who thought of it, Sagan? Does that affect the coolness factor one way or the other?

I like how he says "cosmos." That's good enough for me.

Anyone who disagrees probably loves Hitler, though.

I think we can all at least agree that Cosmos is a cool name for a science show.

Well, I think it all depends on who created the name, because you know, individual humans are important.

I kid. Greek is a cool language and Cosmos is a cool word.

Sure, but what have the Greeks done for us lately?

Greek yogurt. Oh and spanakopita.

Anyways, how does everyone who saw the original think of Tyson as a host? Is he better/worse than Sagan?

 

[gturner]

^ You're skipping an opportunity to poke fun.

Viewer 1: "What's up with this episode? Were they high when they wrote this one?!"
Viewer 2: "Well, funny you should ask. You see, this one was written by the former president of the pot lobby, and..."
Viewer 1: "Oh, I see. So that's why it said we should imagine a little tiny atom, and like that atom is sort of it's own universe, and like that universe contains an atom that contains another universe, and...."
Viewer 2: "Yeah."
Viewer 1: "Groovy."

Viewer 2: "And maybe there's like, I dunno, little factories in there."

** Behind the scenes interview on the Blu-Ray set **

"Well, the Ship of the Imagination was inspired by the delivery van built entirely out of super-compressed bud that Cheech and Chong drove in Up in Smoke."

 

[Christopher]

You know, if I were looking to assign blame for the show's defects I'd be more interested in who's responsible - but I'm not. Therefore, your customary condescending games of Gotcha! don't move me in this instance.

Do you actually think that whoever put this together is doing as good a job as Sagan did? Do you think this show is furthering the cause of science education particularly well? Why or why not?

You completely misread my intention. I'm not trying to "get" you. It's not about you, or about me. It's about Ann Druyan and Steven Soter. I believe -- I have always believed strongly -- that the creators of any work deserve credit and acknowledgment. I don't like seeing Druyan and Soter overlooked for their contributions to this series just because they're less famous than Braga and MacFarlane. I am not trying to put you or any other poster down -- I am trying to acknowledge them. I am not saying anything about whether they're doing as well in collaboration with Tyson as they did in collaboration with Sagan on the original; I'm just saying that creators deserve recognition for their creations, for better or worse.

Also, I think it's important to keep in mind that this series has two of the same three creators as the original series. That was Sagan, Druyan, and Soter; this is Tyson, Druyan, and Soter. People who don't know that may believe this is unconnected to the original, a mere imitation. Knowing that it has 2/3 of the original creative team working on it makes it clear that it's more of a direct continuation. And that brings a very different understanding of just what this series is and how it relates to its forebear.

Sure, but what have the Greeks done for us lately?

Greek yogurt. Oh and spanakopita.

Greek yogurt is too pungent for me, but I love spanakopita.

Anyways, how does everyone who saw the original think of Tyson as a host? Is he better/worse than Sagan?

Sagan was in a class by himself. Tyson doesn't have quite the same accessibility and warmth. But he's a pretty good substitute, and the fact that he's a protege of Sagan's makes him seem like a legitimate inheritor of the mantle.