Cosmos with Neil DeGrass Tyson

roxrkool,I concur. My 9 year old daughter and I watched the show on Monday night. She asked a lot of questions as the show progressed which is always a good sign that this show apeals to the young and old alike. She asked about aliens, why Voyager had a gold disc with pictures of humans and other things on it, etc.I liked the revived show with Tyson. He brought a down-to-earth feel. Though I still believe Carl did it best. Look forward to future episodes.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

I'm not sure what to make of this complaint because Bruno's pantheistic views don't justify 8 years of imprisonment and turning Giordano over for burning either. And we also know from Galileo's later indictment that claims that the RCC was tolerant of Copernicus's views aren't defensible either. I think the spirit of that principle was covered. Dr. Tyson talked about the thought police, and the fact that Bruno was no scientist.As far as criticism, I have been a NDT fan ever since I saw his spots on 'The Universe' a show that I consider to be a History Channel highlight. But I did find the Dr Tyson's presentation to be a bit stilted, or at least, something less than seamless in a lot of the spots. Those stilted spots don't include the places where he talks about Dr. Sagan.And if we are picking nits, I didn't like the ship design all that much either.

Took me a few days, but I just finished the first episode last night. My opinion is probably an outlier, but I thought it was really lame. Bad and misleading animations (e.g., Big Bang, Jupiter's red spot, Earth and moon's formation, the story of Giordano Bruno). Way oversimplified explanations. I don't mind simplification for laypeople, but how watered down does science have to become before it's wrong. Is this targeted at 8-year olds?I liked the tribute to Sagan at the end. Did anyone else notice that Sagan's wife is one of the producers? That may have been her next to Sagan in one of the shots, but it went by too fast to be sure.--Percy

I caught the moon issue and I understand what your objection to Bruno is although I don't share it. I'm not even sure that the impact-theory for forming the moon is the only accepted possibility.http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/.../lect/moon/moon_formation.html

quote:

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Five serious theories have been proposed for the formation of the Moon (not counting the one involving green cheese):

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But what was the Jupiter Red Spot error? What was the BBT error. NDT has no business making those.But now that you mention it, I thought the attempt to show Jupiter's surface was bad because most likely there isn't anything firm you could stand on.

What I took away from this was that it was an explosion, there was no mention of expansion or inflation.Nor any discussion of brane-theory (but then I wouldn't expect a review of alternate theories)

The problem with the Great Red Spot animation was endemic to most of the animations: greatly accelerated timescale. I think at least some mention was required that these events do not happen this fast. The moon wasn't built in a day.The moon animation was unrealistic in the extreme - boulders the size of Rhode Island colliding with the infant moon at velocities of miles/second and just sticking to it without vaporizing or at least getting pulverized.The problem with the Big Bang animation was equally bad because it reinforced the myth that it was some kind of explosion.I liked the Bruno story, but the primitive animation was painful. Reminded me of bad Japanese cartoons.I didn't like the original Cosmos series, either. I didn't see it when it first came out, but I tried to watch it a decade ago and found it dated (not his fault) and hokey and, given that I wasn't learning anything, not worth my time. I gave up after a few episodes.I'm not asking people to agree with me. I'm frequently an outlier in these kinds of things. The original Cosmos series is cited by many as having sparked their interest in science. Many science people love Scoobie Doo because he debunks unscientific nonsense, but I find the animation and the writing bad, and the plots worse, not to mention numbingly predictable.--Percy

After I posted I realized you were talking about the animation technique more than the events. I do wish it had been better. This is one place where it is possible to out-do Sagan's series. Probably a time and money issue.There is a lot of heat on the webs about the scientific accuracy of the show, with some of the critics being somewhat off target. But the story of Bruno seems to draw the most attention. I've even read posts defending the treatment of Bruno because he was a troublemaker and not a scientist. I didn't have any personal problem with the speed up because I know that without it there would be nothing much to see. I don't think I've ever seen a red spot video that was not sped up. I filled in the slowdown narrative mentally. I suspect you are right about it misleading lots of people.I think the BB explosion problem is unavoidable without adding even more distortion just for the purpose of making a point. Viewed from an extra-dimensional perspective, wouldn't expanding from atom size in a billion-zillionth of a second look like an explosion? Some artificial slowdown would have been required... In fact I'd argue that the animation was slowed down. I can easily see the stuff bothering you being an issue. I would have liked to see the Bruno stuff done with live actors with a little CGI for the space exploring parts. But the fact that they told the Bruno story at all is a plus for me.Are you planning to watch the next one?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : add some prepositions: I am going to start using preview.

My TiVo's set up to record the series, but given that I'm reacting to it pretty much the same way as the original it seems possible that I'll end up watching little of it. Hard to say. The first episode was an overview, maybe it gets more informative and accurate and less "Oh, wow, the universe!" in later episodes.It's a rare science documentary that tells someone who keeps up with science something they don't already know, though sometimes the animations are incredibly helpful in visualizing something you already knew about but had trouble picturing. That Grand Canyon documentary someone posted somewhere in the Why the Flood Never Happened thread had a beautiful animation of cutback of a river through a landscape, and of mountains eroding to plains. When I watch science programs on TV I'm mainly interested in something well explained so that I can improve my own explanations.--Percy

Make that 2 outliers.

Don't you think that'd be too advanced to get the kind of ratings that they need for this show?

For what? Scooby Doo or Cosmos? Surely you don't mean Scooby Doo! HBD

Both have the same kind of cheap moving cardboard figure "animation" imho.Curiously I keep thinking of Kramer ...

I'm sticking with it for now. I don't think my standards for watching are all that high, and as far as timing goes, I just watch it on the internet at my convenience. I'm a sucker for 'physics TV'.As for the original, I watched it on video decades after it came out. Unless I'm mistaken, you can watch it all 13 episodes here.Attention Required! | Cloudflare I can dig it.

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.

The errors in the show are even worse when viewed from this perspective. Children of that age may not be able to tell the difference between artistic license and scientific accuracy. This may be their only exposure to this area of science their entire lives. Do you really want them to come away with the impression that the Big Bang was just like an explosion, or that the Moon formed exactly like they showed it?Also, being treated like a 12 year old is why I find it hard to enjoy the show . . . but I still have my DVR set to record all the episodes, and I will watch them.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.