Thanks to the connection of my employer to the NOVA series "Origins" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/) from last September, the host of the series and author of the companion book, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is the Director of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC, flew out to give a talk at the UW and at Seattle's Town Hall. I weaseled my way on The List for the reception (one kind of sammich, three kinds of salad, whaa?) and lecture at Town Hall.
Like most people in the space business, he inserted, somewhat haphazardly, a Cassini talk into the middle of what was a fairly broad cosmology lecture, including an exciting picture of some bearded guy applying the metal foil to Huygens. Dr. Tyson was not happy with the picture, and notes that if Huygens turns out to have found beard hair on Titan, you should be skeptical of the results.
He then took one of the aerial pictures of the "shoreline" on Titan, and placed it next to a similar picture of the Pacific coast of California, and then said "What we are about to do is engage in irresponsible speculation. IRRESPONSIBLE SPECULATION." And went on to compare the similarites of the features (the California picture was a really good match to start with). It was a great talk, quite funny, and his responses to questions (including a doozy about alien intelligence and human consciousness) were very well considered.
Plus, he signed the Origins book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393059928) with a fountain pen, and for a young man who bought his first book, Merlin's Tour of the Universe (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385488351), he signed "MERLIN" in an exquisite gothic script-- it took about 3 minutes to sign the name and draw all the little serifs and odd little marks which only K can name. Cool.
no subject
Like most people in the space business, he inserted, somewhat haphazardly, a Cassini talk into the middle of what was a fairly broad cosmology lecture, including an exciting picture of some bearded guy applying the metal foil to Huygens. Dr. Tyson was not happy with the picture, and notes that if Huygens turns out to have found beard hair on Titan, you should be skeptical of the results.
He then took one of the aerial pictures of the "shoreline" on Titan, and placed it next to a similar picture of the Pacific coast of California, and then said "What we are about to do is engage in irresponsible speculation. IRRESPONSIBLE SPECULATION." And went on to compare the similarites of the features (the California picture was a really good match to start with). It was a great talk, quite funny, and his responses to questions (including a doozy about alien intelligence and human consciousness) were very well considered.
Plus, he signed the Origins book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393059928) with a fountain pen, and for a young man who bought his first book, Merlin's Tour of the Universe (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385488351), he signed "MERLIN" in an exquisite gothic script-- it took about 3 minutes to sign the name and draw all the little serifs and odd little marks which only K can name. Cool.