Cosmos with Neil DeGrass Tyson

Kaku I will give you. For all his smarts his presentation is all platitudes - dull, stale, overused.Tyson, though, is fresh. Get him in a room with a few nutcases and his tongue is as sharp as his mind. He has the personality to pull this off very well. What he lacks, however, is a prominent left nostril for the camera to zoom in to.

Wonders of the Universe. Great show. One of the (maddeningly) few real science show on The Science Channel over here. I like him very much. The science is well explained and though not overly detailed neither is it dumbed down. I like the personal perspectives he puts in to his shows. Two Thumbs-up.

I wouldn't know how easy/difficult it would be for you to get The Science Channel over yonder. Not really sure you would want to. You think The History Channel is maddening with its low brow crap ... Well, I suppose if you don't have enough TV stu**pidity to grind your teeth at, The Science Channel would be useful addition. Besides Cox, one of the other less asinine science shows on that channel is Though the Wormhole staring God.

We watch it because we are all science nuts. We know this stuff already and we know a whole lot the technical details. But remember who the target audience is. It ain't us.We don't teach calculus to 8th graders and we don't teach Quantum Mechanics to HS Juniors. (I've been out of it for so long, hell, maybe they do these days.) There will time, and motivation, to correct the details once the interest is ignited.Don't look at this through your eyes. Look at it through the eyes of your 12 year old granddaughter.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

If it piques their interest instead of giving them glassy eyes from difficult details then yes, of course. If they develop the wonder then the details will not repel them when they can grasp the deeper stuff. Then don't watch it alone. Find a kid somewhere, anywhere. Watch their brains churn. And be ready to answer questions."Well, it wasn't an explosion like a bomb or anything, but it was kinda like that, yeah. Cool pictures." Be infectious.

OK, Uncle Harry. Watch it alone and be disappointed in the general nature lacking a level of detail that you would prefer. For you this will not be a "good" science show.I haven't been 12, 14, 16 in quite a few years, but to me this first episode, establishing a tone and setting the general direction, matches well the intellectual level of the target audience. From this first episode, with it's graphics, pace and level of detail, the series has taken the first step toward being a "very good" science show indeed.

Only if you put it up on EvC to share with the rest of us.

Hey, you tried and you didn't push too hard.Maybe, just maybe, you try periodically over the next few years. If there is no interest then there is no interest. Que sera sera. Besides, it's expected that a dad be seen as just a bit weird by his daughters. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

For me, the best of episode 5 was the depiction of the atoms (I know, slowed down a gazillion times etc, but sooo much better than the usual depiction of the Bohr models. I loved their rendition of the proton.), using this to explain the spectral lines and then using the code of the spectral lines to decipher the constituents of other worlds, stars and galaxies. Probably the best description and demonstration of the power of the spectral lines ever created for the layman.Seeing the city through different light frequencies was cool and all, but the key teaching point of the episode has to be the way science found and uses the spectrum to see the universe.I'm hoping this will open the eyes and minds of the great unwashed masses as to just how we humans can know so much about what's out there from just looking up. Maybe it will help them realize scientific knowledge is not some eggheads making things up while sitting around drinking tea.