Saturday, April 5, 2014

Assignment # 2: Does ‘Popular Science’ Today Awe Us, Inspire Us or Threaten Us?

The show “Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey” hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson demonstrates where our Earth belongs within the Virgo Super cluster. It shows us the measurement of space and time relative to Earth. Tyson introduced us to Giordano Bruno who was a Renaissance Italian philosopher. He explains the hardship Bruno faced due to believing that Sun was the center and other planets revolved around it. Since it went against the geocentric model embraced by the church, he was punished and was burned on a stake. Many people gave up their lives for the sake of popular science, the science that we learn today. It is all thanks to people like Bruno who sacrificed themselves so that the popular science could be more accurate. The show also uses the concept of the Cosmic Calendar to describe what it would look like if we can fit the time since the Big Bang till the birth of human species in a year. I was quite wonder struck when he explained that all of humanity has only existed in the last minute of the last second of the last month in that year. The tone of this show doesn't seem very optimistic about humanistic values since our place in this universe is tinier than a speck of dust. However, it is very optimistic about humans being able to explore this universe more through future technology and discoveries. I am astonished by how vast and majestic our universe is and how infinite it seems, so yes I do feel very small. However, I don’t believe that there isn't a point of our existence in this universe. Our humanistic values and the ability to be able to discover different galaxies and find out the origin of our solar system and many other things beyond that makes us far more valuable than merely our size in this universe. Despite being a bit differed towards the tone of this show, I have learned a lot about our place in this universe and what it is actually made up of. The science in this show is very interesting and it makes me to know more about astronomy. 

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