That's a TV show. If you've never heard of it, then you sure are missing out on a LOT. A follow up to Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, this is the kind of show for the people who have deep fascination for the cosmos but do not quite understand the complex physics behind the researches and discoveries that are made. People like me, for instance.
It's so sad that it has to come to an end so quickly. I have yet to watch the final episode but I know I'm going to be left wanting for more after it's done. Neil deGrasse Tyson did such a wonderful job conveying the messages about our magnificent universe to us in a way that we could all understand and appreciate it better. In one episode he is outlining every major event that has occurred since the Big Bang in the context of one Earth year. The next he is discussing how quickly we're depleting our resources and destroying the only home we have (as of now.) In other words; first he tells us how we came to be and then, gives us a gentle reminder that we're all going to die soon (my sister's brilliantly simple conclusion of that episode) if we keep this up... All relevant to us, all irrefutably important.
One of the many highlights of this show was the fact that the producers managed to keep it real and relatable to the ordinary Joe that had just happened to turn to the right channel on a weekend night. Neil manages to scale us down to almost nothingness when compared to the universe and yet, make us feel so special when he speaks of our race's greatest achievements. He also doesn't forget to tell us the stories behind the names that we only see in physics textbooks. With the stories attached to these names, we finally begin to see that Faraday wasn't just some lifeless guy that had nothing better to do than play with electric sparks. Or that Maxwell wasn't some math whiz that had numbers forming equations for him at the snap of his fingers. Or perhaps that Marie Curie must have been really unpopular as a kid to have been interested in radioactive whatnots (I swear, I've heard the likes of these presumptions about scientists all too often...)
They weren't gods, they weren't born with special abilities. They weren't even that smart in school. They were just some very ordinary people with extraordinary determination and even more unbelievably imaginative minds.
Let's step away from all the scientific mumbo-jumbo for a bit. Let's think about some things. How did people begin to make theories about things they weren't even sure was there? All those people that devoted their lives to something that only they could see while everyone called them the crazy loonies for having their head stuck up in the clouds, why didn't they just give up? Thomas Alva Edison failed 1000 times before the first light bulb came on. Some never even lived to see their dreams come true! (Da Vinci anyone?)
“Dream, Dream DreamBack to the topic of this blog. Neil spoke of his experience meeting Carl Sagan for the first time when he was just 17 years old in one of the episodes. Carl was his inspiration. And now he's mine - to be a bigger person that I can ever dare imagine. Just imagine how many others must have been inspired by this show as well. The fact that Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow is one of the co-creators of the show just makes it all a tad bit more intimate and touching. A torch lit by that great thinker has been passed on to yet another generation - isn't that the greatest legacy one can leave behind once they're gone?
Dreams transform into thoughts
And thoughts result in action.”
― A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
I end this blog with a fruit for your thoughts, in hopes that I have changed the way you saw scientists if you've ever just heard the names and not their tales.
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes. - Nikola Tesla, "Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)
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