We begin ( and end ) in one of Carl Sagan ’s favorite virtual environments from the original serial : the Library of Alexandria . Sagan used the Library as a warning tale about what can be lost when a civilisation is careless with its knowledge , but Tyson uses it as an inspirational chronicle .
Tyson views the Library as a triumph , because it represents our civilisation ’s on-going pursuit to gain and maintain stores of knowledge . And Tyson has a hypothesis about the societal mental process that expire into making a program library .
The accomplishment of cognition begins with admitting our own ignorance . We profit nothing by pretending to have solution we do n’t have . No one human being is perfect and no period in story is free of preconception . The purpose of science is to factor in out our biases and assumptions and to render a basis for differentiate fact from speculation , theory from intuition and reason from illusion . It is this ego - correcting mechanics that makes scientific discipline not just another worldview , not just another bag of conjecture among many .
From Alexandria , we move once again into the history of geology and astrophysics , from the first globes develop by Martin Behaim in the 15th century , through the discovery the supernova by the awesomely name astrophysicist and indie stone mascot Fritz Zwicky , through the discoveries of dark matter by Vera Rubin and dingy energy in the 1990s by the equally awesomely call High - izzard Supernova Search Team .
In myinterview with Dr. Tyson , I asked him why he has said that obscure subject and moody energy should be rename “ Fred and Wilma . ” According to Tyson , the terms “ dark matter ” and “ benighted vigour ” are just “ code words for our ignorance . ” Calling them “ issue ” and “ energy ” gives the feeling that we have some approximation what these military group really are when the verity is , aright now , we have n’t puzzle a clue .
Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why the new Cosmos matters so much
From Fred and Wilma , we move on to the Voyager missions ’ exploration of the outer solar system . Carl Sagan was a member of the imaging team for the Voyager mission . As Voyager 1 passed the orbit of Neptune , Sagan convinced NASA to turn the craft around and take a photograph of the distant and minuscule Earth , which he famously dubbed “ The Pale Blue Dot . ”
Tyson ends by replaying Sagan ’s original monologue about this remote cosmic selfie . Sagan manifestly states that look back on the Earth from this vantage make it impossible to imagine that this full home , this cosmos , was made with us in mind . We are late arrivals on a small speck floating around an quotidian star in a commonplace Galax urceolata . Imagining ourselves to be the special role of creation is n’t mere hubris , it ’s dangerous hallucination .
For all our vaunted self - importance , for all our self-confidence that this monumental , incredible position was made just for us , there is no evidence that anyone is coming to save us from ourselves . It is for us , huddled together on this humble aristocratical molecule in the vast cosmic ocean , to develop systems of knowledge and thought that cater us with the tools we need to live in a marvelous , beautiful and totally indifferent universe .
We are responsible for maintain our home and show our cosmic citizenship . For while we may not be the special , hand - project paragons of all creation we imagine ourselves to be , we are something far , far more wanted : we are the cosmos coming alive , wake up up and getting to love itself .
bring the night ’s sky as a metaphor , Tyson notes that the Brobdingnagian majority of what we see around is us hide in darkness and obscurity . Only a few pinholes glow like candles in the night . When we deny the spark , when we close our minds to science and reason , we do far more than impoverish ourselves of true statement , we literally run off the population ’s time .
But asanother great cosmic TV personalityrecently reminded us , there was once a sentence when there was nothing but darkness . From where we sit down here , it looks likethe light is winning .
Astrophysicscosmos
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , science , and civilisation news in your inbox day by day .
word from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
