Blog Post 13:

In this final episode of the Blog series, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses how far humanity has been set back in the past due to events such as the destruction of the library of Alexandria and the crusades, which lead to a mass genocide of intellectual scholars. Tyson also discusses the interstellar journey of two voyage probes and their importance in the discovery of new planets and mapping out our universe. Tyson also discusses the discovery of Cosmic Rays by Victor Hess and how these discoveries can help map out future movement of galaxies.

I really enjoyed this episode, mainly due to its ending in which Neil DeGrasse Tyson emphasizes Carl Sagan’s message about the vastness of our Universe and how that we as a species must continue to make new discoveries every day and continue to research the Cosmos. Overall this was an extremely interesting series which summarized how we came to be in the Cosmos and our inevitable fate if we do not continue our scientific discoveries.

Blog Post 12:

In this episode, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses how life has developed on earth and the potential of other life in the Cosmos. Tyson emphasizes DNA as a structure that can help us explain the evolution of life on earth. After describing the origin of life on earth and how material can “transfer” from one plane to the next, Tyson moves on to discuss how life can exist on other planets and our attempts with radio waves to contact other life in the Universe. Tyson emphases the various reasons why contacting other life may prove difficult due to Mass Extinction events, but he states that through science, we can transcend earth and move to other planets and even solar systems before our sun dies.

I liked this episode because it discusses the importance of science to humanities future. This episode could be used as an argumentative piece as to why it is important to fund space exploration. Overall, with the recent defunding of NASA, we need to be able to provide more evidence on why space exploration is so important.

Blog Post 11:

In this episode, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses Electromagnetism. Tyson discusses some of the famous scientists that evolved their work around electricity including Isaac Newton. After many unsuccessful attempts to harness electricity, scientist Michael Faraday would create the first electric motor by controlling electricity using magnets. Faraday would go on to emphasize that electricity and magnetisms were connected to unseen field. Faraday continues to discover the Faraday effect that which leads to the discover of earth’s magnetic field. All this work was initially rejected by the scientific community due to a lack of mathematical support until James Clark Maxwell redid Faraday’s theories applying Maxwell’s equations. Maxwell’s and Faraday’s contributions have led to a lot of the conveniences that we use every day like the internet and phones.

I liked this episode because it discusses the use of electricity and how we can apply it to the conveniences we use today. Like a lot of science, discovering Earth’s magnetic field involved a lot of initial rejection and failure but Faraday’s persistence and eventual success proves why it is important to not give up in science. This episode speaks volumes to the basis of science which involves a lot of experimentation and failure.

In this episode, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses Pangea and how the structure of the old world has affected our world today. Tyson discusses the mass extinction of the ocean around 252 million years ago that killed off 90% of the world. Tyson then describes details of Plate tectonics and how they affect continental drift. Tyson then moves on to explain the “Dinosaur extinction” that killed off the dinosaurs. He ends the video by describing some of the more recent geological events, and explaining the earth is always changing. The earth will continue to change in the future and Tyson believes that we are due for another mass extinction.

This is also one of my favorite episodes be far because of Dinosaurs. Tyson provides a great summary of the earth and how it has changed since its creation. Overall, my favorite parts of this episodes are when he summarizes the Mass Extinction events because I always found those interesting (mainly the Dinosaur extinction). This episode does kind of end in doom and gloom by explaining that another mass extinction event is on the horizon. Overall, it was a great episode.

Blog Post 9:

In this episode, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses stars in more detail, he goes over the composition of the stars and what will eventually happen to them. Tyson emphasizes how stars were used by our ancestors and when we mapped out the consolations. Tyson then discusses the lifecycle of stars and discusses what happens to stars once they die. Tyson ends the episode by discussing how we are similar to the stars and that the stars help drive us here on earth.

I liked this episode because Neil DeGrasse Tyson provides a great summary of stars and how they live and die. I also liked the when NDT discusses the Harvard Observatory under Pickering which had several women scientists who worked to process astronomical data. It is important to highlight women’s accomplishments and I believe that this is one of the most important accomplishments of women in Astronomy that I know of. I also really liked the end when NDT discusses the fate of our Sun.

In this episode, Neil DeGrasse Tyson examines how science is used to determine the age of the earth. Tyson first describes how the earth was formed and then discusses how we can use asteroids to help date the earth and examine how the earth was several million years ago. Tyson then discusses the work of some scientists to help date the earth via Uranium’s half-life. Although the Uranium was tainted with lead which lead to inconclusive results. These scientists were able to remove the lead and dated the earth as about 4.5 Billion years old. These tests were also used to determine that lead is poisonous to humans and Tyson wraps up this episode by empathizing that studying nature helps us avoid fateful issues.

I liked this episode because it goes into the processes to age elements of the earth and I found the story of lead-based Uranium interesting. Overall, I feel like this episode emphasizes the important of science to help humankind learn more about not only the Cosmos, but the deadly nature of the unknown.

Blog Post 7: “Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still”

In this episode, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses the subatomic worlds that we have. He utilizes the ship of the imagination to view microscopic organisms and he discusses how atoms use processes such as photosynthesis to help evolution.  Tyson also goes into detail about the structure of atoms and how these atoms can overcome their electromagnetic forces to go through nuclear processes (which in turn create neutrinos).  Tyson ends the episode by discussing neutrinos in depth and how some neutrinos from the big bang still exist.

I liked this episode because Tyson does a great job summarizing molecular structure and how they can overcome their electromagnetic limitations to create nuclear processes. My favorite part was towards the end when Tyson discusses that Neutrinos from the big bang exist but are unobservable because of a “wall” that limits are ability to see beyond it. I did not know this wall existed so I found that really interesting.

Blog Post 6: “Hiding in the light”

In this episode, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses light. Neil DeGrasse Tyson empathizes how many important astronomical discoveries were made using light. He talks about specific experiments which would eventually lead to the invention of the telescope. Tyson introduces the nature of light and how, through prisms, light is detracted to give us the different colors via the visible spectrum. NDT also discusses how eventually studying light would give us a means to discover the different composition of heavenly bodies and give us a means to track their journey through the Cosmos

I did not really enjoy this episode because the subject seems pretty boring to me. Overall it was very informative though.

Blog Post 5: “A Sky full of Ghosts”

In this episode of the Cosmos: A spacetime Odyssey, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses the nature of light in the Universe.  In the episode NDT makes the point about how the stars we see in the sky are from galaxies millions of light years away and how since light travels from a great distance, what we see in the sky is what happened several million years ago. NDT also discusses how stars give off light to allow us to observe them and introducing the idea of dark stars, which are not seen but can be tracked via other stars. Tyson ends the episode by discussing the nature of black holes and uses the ship of the imagination to convey the warping of spacetime and time dilation as one enters the event horizon of the black hole.

This is one of my favorite episodes so far because of Tyson’s segment on Black Holes. Black Holes are one of my favorite subject and Tyson’s animations towards the end made confusing concepts easier to understand. Although the idea of Dark stars is confusing, Tyson does a good job explaining it which helped me understand them a bit better.

In this episode of the Cosmos: A spacetime Odyssey, Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses the stars and how planets moved around the solar system. At the beginning of the episode, he discusses how people used the stars to predict the future. He often said that people viewed comets as an angry god’s message to people and this led to overall fear of comets. Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses how a comets origin only became known due to the work of Jan Oort who debunked that the entire solar system revolves around the sun. Instead he introduced Oort clouds as a concept that the Universe is in constant random motion outside of our solar system. NDT also discusses how Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley introduced major works to describe the laws of motion and how they relate to our Universe, much to the disdain of popular scientists at the time.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode because it shows the evolution of mankind’s thought processes about the Cosmos. Although there is always more to explore, I feel like this episode was a great summary of humanities discoveries of the Cosmos so far.