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Superlative Picks: June 26, 2006 DVD
“Cosmos” by Carl Sagan I know that all of you are thinking two things right now: 1. By making this a Superlative Pick … have you gone nuts? 2. Given that this series was originally aired in 1980, isn’t the scientific information in the show “outdated”? For those of you who remember when “Cosmos” first aired, I’m sure that the first image that pops in your head is the late Carl Sagan with his “emphatic” pronunciation of the word “billions”. I was a high school senior when the show came out on PBS. And while some of the imagery and verbiage even then seemed “silly”, certain episodes brought out certain pieces of science which motivated me to learn more. And even more importantly, Sagan’s presentation helped me to understand some very complex scientific theories (he does a masterful job in explaining “curved space” and how distant galaxies travel faster than galaxies closer to our Milky Way galaxy). Coincidentally, the one subject Sagan spoke about has a current – albeit tangential – relevance to our Internet world. While we today hear the word “Google” and think of the web search engine … Sagan talks about the numbers “googol” (10 100), and “googolplex” (10 10^100). In that segment, Sagan walks around Cambridge University with a roll of toilet paper trying to represent googolplex; concluding with the statement “The amount of paper it would take to write the number googolplex could not fit into the known universe.” Silly … but thought-provoking. Now, to address the second question – while we’ve made major advancements in the 26 years since “Cosmos”, there’s one “state” which makes the DVD still relevant. No major scientific theory or concept presented on the show has been disproved; “special relativity”, for example, is still held as valid. And the world is not now flat. For the most part, the majority of our major scientific precepts still hold; the only “outdated” aspect of the original 1980 show is Sagan’s obsession with avoiding nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Despite our knowledge being about the same, many episodes of “Cosmos” end with a “Cosmos Update”, where Sagan presents new, recent information which impacts what was “believed” when the show first aired. Bottom line: watching “Cosmos” won’t revert your knowledge to the time of the Dark Ages. But again, we return to the memories of Sagan using the words “billions and billions”, billions and billions of times. Personally, in 1980 I always laughed at Sagan’s “Ship of the Imagination” … which amounted to traveling the universe in a dandelion. Or my favorite: since all atoms are created in stars, and then expelled into space when a star dies – Sagan’s repetitive phrase “We are all made of star-stuff.” Why do I point out this “silliness” in a DVD a recommend? Reason: it don’t matter; the shows are still thought-provoking, even now. Why do I recommend “Cosmos”? For those of you who grew up when PBS first aired the series: hey, it’s nostalgic. And you might remember something which you forgot. And for those who never heard Sagan say “bee-llions”: you might learn and understand something you never knew before. Like “bee-llions” of people around the world, I know about, and use, “Google”. But I also remember – and know – what “googol” is. Thanks to Carl Sagan. And his silliness.
CB
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