Reply to: Cosmos

[TimberWolf]

So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'cause there's bugger-all down here on earth!

Talk about small. Our life spans are so short and the lifetime of the universe so large, we will not get to see how it turns out. Bloody annoyed is closer to the truth.

[Churchill]

So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'cause there's bugger-all down here on earth!

[Mich the Tester]

I was surprised to surmise recently that since our galaxy rotates once every 200 million years or so (at the Sun's distance anyhow) and given that the universe is only about 13 billion years old, it's only rotated a maximum of 65 times in that time, and probably a lot less. Our galaxy is a mere whipper snapper, despite having existed almost since the big bang in one form or another. The whole universe is a baby.

So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'cause there's bugger-all down here on earth!

[Churchill]

h2g2.

Hitch-Hikers Guide Galaxy?

F**k off, that's like Romanes Eunt Domus - or some such bollocks.

[TimberWolf]

I was surprised to surmise recently that since our galaxy rotates once every 200 million years or so (at the Sun's distance anyhow) and given that the universe is only about 13 billion years old, it's only rotated a maximum of 65 times in that time, and probably a lot less. Our galaxy is a mere whipper snapper, despite having existed almost since the big bang in one form or another. The whole universe is a baby.

[sasguru]

Eldest is starting to understand it all - a scientist in the making.

If you intend to live in the UK, stamp on that tendency immediately.
There's no future in it

[gingerjedi]

Did anyone catch Horizon a couple of weeks back? Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong?

Basically this 'dark mater' which supposedly makes up 70% of the mater in the known universe has to exist to make cosmological physics work yet no-one has managed to detect a single atom of the stuff.

To add to that parts of visible universe appear to be still accelerating away which doesn't make sense if dark mater as we understand it exists, one guy on the program suggested that our known universe could be a bubble amongst countless other universes that have different and unexplained forces which are being felt in our own... at which point my head just exploded.

[Mich the Tester]

His passion for the subject is almost child like at times!

It should be. Scientists should never grow up because they would lose the sense of wonder that drives them to discover. Go somewhere really dark at night, like the highlands of Scotland or the Atlas mountains and look up; any delusions of knowledgeable, adult wisdom fall away when you realize that you’re just a tiny and rather insignificant part of something so vast where there’s so much to be discovered.

As Sagan said, ‘I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students’.

Too much modern education seems to dull the mind; it programs the less able kids to flip burgers and programs the more able kids to make excel sheets with KPIs and credit derivativey nonsense. Really good education would leave us with a nation of scientists, inventors and craftspeople and a shortage of bankers and accountants.

One thing that I found impressive in Sagan’s program was his examination of the Alexandrian philosophers and scientists. Those people were in fact polymaths who sought an understanding of many fronts, like maths, physics, philosophy, literature, music and so on. I wonder if there’s actually a role for polymaths now, given that every field of endeavour has become specialized; I actually think we need polymaths to help understand our lives.

[Coalman]

Indeed. We can forgive the d-ream stuff now. We've all been young and impressionable.

But yes, excellent TV. If only physics teachers were given the freedom to talk about this kind of thing in the classroom, as an inspiration alongside the theory, there'd be no shortage of scientists and engineers.

His passion for the subject is almost child like at times!

There is a companion series on CBBC called Space Hoppers were some of his stuff is used, my 5 year old and 3 year old are mesmerised by it (but that may just be the pretty graphics !!). Eldest is starting to understand it all - a scientist in the making.

[Mich the Tester]

Any one been watching the Wonders of the Solar System by Professor Brian Cox - briliant and simply explains everything.

Latest episode about the rings of Saturn - excellent.

Indeed. We can forgive the d-ream stuff now. We've all been young and impressionable.

But yes, excellent TV. If only physics teachers were given the freedom to talk about this kind of thing in the classroom, as an inspiration alongside the theory, there'd be no shortage of scientists and engineers.

[gingerjedi]

Isn't that from HHGTTG?

Not googled it.

h2g2.

[wurzel]

James Burke's Connections was also good.

[TimberWolf]

BTW Mich - just read your sig - how apt!

I quite liked this quote from the opening sequence:

"...through the search of 40,000 generations of our ancestors, we have come to discover our co-ordinates in space and in time".

[Coalman]

BTW Mich - just read your sig - how apt!

[Coalman]

Any one been watching the Wonders of the Solar System by Professor Brian Cox - briliant and simply explains everything.

Latest episode about the rings of Saturn - excellent.

And yes he was part of D'Ream and did 'Things can only get better ...'