Blog Post Entry by Jesse Rodriguez:
For my blog series, I have chosen to watch Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. I have just finished watching Episode 1: Standing up in the Milky Way and I believe that Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes several good and interesting points. For a brief introduction, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses our Cosmic Address and an introduction into the concept of a vast and expanding Universe. One of the stories that I found particularly interesting is the treatment of Girodano Bruno, an Italian scientist who questioned the Roman Catholics view of the Universe. For introducing the concept of an expanding Universe and the earth revolving around the Sun, Bruno was imprisoned and tortured. Only recently have people accepted these two views.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson also discusses the Universe’s past and about the formation of the known Universe / Earth. I found this particularly interesting because Tyson introduces the idea of the chance nature of existence. This idea delves into how our entire existence is an accumulation of random fate events that all happened to create what we know as present-day earth. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole explanation and found it very insightful.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson finishes the episode by acknowledging how science is passed on through the generations from teacher to student to teacher. This section of the episode Tyson acknowledges past scientists including Carl Sagan and spends the end of the episode discusses his personal experiences with Sagan and thanks him by paying homage to him in this episode. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode and can’t wait to watch the rest to learn about how we are all star stuff!
Jesse's AST109-006 Blog 