Jump to content
  • Join us — it's free!

    We are the premiere internet community for New York Rangers news and fan discussion. Don't wait — join the forum today!

IGNORED

"Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey" remake w/ Neil deGrasse Tyson


quick release

Recommended Posts

Thoughts on the first episode? Here's my quick take:

 

I thought it was a good start to a series with potential. It simplified complicated things (generally, without oversimplifying them) and explained some interesting things about our planet, solar system, galaxy, universe. We got a history lesson to go with it as an added bonus.

 

I think it has a lot of potential to educate people and spark interest in science, in general. Judging from the first episode, it's not just a show about astronomy. There were so many interesting topics covered throughout the episode that I wish it was more of an interactive experience where each topic Neil discussed could be expanded upon, as narrated by him, at the click of a button. I guess I'll have to wait for the DVD.

 

The purpose of this show is basically to raise awareness of the universe around us by giving people a cursory glance at everything. It's meant to spark interest that will lead to further research, i.e. Googling some of the things you see on the show or discussing it with others. I certainly think it has accomplished that in its first episode.

 

I look forward to getting more in depth looks at some of the things mentioned in the first episode. I really enjoyed the simplified view of the timeline of the universe using a calendar. It really showed how miniscule we are in the whole grand scheme of things. I suspect there will be a lot of that during the course of this show.

 

I didn't like the inclusion of multiverses. Only minutes before they showed that, Neil explained the importance of the scientific method and empirical evidence. To then cap off the "cosmic address" with the concept of multiverses, which is highly theoretical and has little to no empirical evidence to support it, didn't seem to follow the original line of thinking. It certainly is thought provoking, and I suppose that's why it was included, but it seemed disingenuous, even though Neil did say that it was something physicists only postulate about. I feel that perhaps that should have been more stressed.

 

Then, I could see the history lesson of Bruno's visions of the universe and the reactions of the time really rubbing people the wrong way. That was probably the most "controversial" thing about the show in my book. I'd be interested to see some people's reactions to that sequence, but I'm not all that willing to venture into those parts of the internet.

 

All in all, I thought it was a good start to a series with a lot of potential. I look forward to the coming episodes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Neil dropped the E Bomb and discussed evolution in this episode. At first, it's hard to believe how all of this could possibly happen. But he hammers the point home with a few examples of how evolution occurs. It gives a better idea of what it means to be naturally selected and how species come about and evolve. I wish he would have emphasized that this happens over the course of many thousands of generations, however.

 

I'm sure this episode gave some people some fits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well the entire last episode was about evolution, so that's right up your alley. In fact the only time we "left Earth" was to go to Titan to hypothesize that life could form in places that would be unsuitable for life on Earth. In fact, I wish he would have focused on that a bit more and discussed some of the "extremophiles" that we find here on Earth as possible lending evidence to the fact that life could exist on these very un-Earthlike places.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.



×
×
  • Create New...