As a child, I was vaguely aware of the importance of Carl Sagan. Having been born in the late 70's, I was not old enough to watch the original Cosmos (I was 4 1/2 when it first aired). I have watched a few episodes of the series recently, although I have not yet watched the original series in its entirety.
When I learned that Neil deGrasse Tyson would be hosting a new version of Cosmos, produced by Sagan's wife Ann Druyan and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, I knew it was something I had to watch. Astrophysics has always been a huge interest of mine. If I hadn't gotten a degree in computer science, I might have gotten one in astrophysics.
I first became aware of Neil deGrasse Tyson when I watched a few episodes of Nova ScienceNow. I became more fascinated with him when I saw his first appearance on The Daily Show. I don't necessarily agree with every opinion he has, but I am willing to watch any show he is on. Combine that with a Cosmos sequel, and I'm there!
The first episode starts with quotes from Carl Sagan. We then meet Neil, on Earth. Neil describes the basic premise of the show -- we will travel throughout the universe in our own Spaceship of the Imagination, which will be used to visualize what is being described during the course of the series. This is the same vehicle (pun intended) that Carl Sagan used in the original Cosmos series.
The episode continues with a basic overview of the Earth and its location in the cosmos. It's "address", so to speak. The show takes time to talk about the sun, and the inner planets, the asteroid belt, Jupiter, and Saturn. I was a bit disappointed by the fact that Uranus and Neptune were mere afterthoughts.
From there, the show travels out beyond the edge of the solar system. It briefly mentions that in between the solar systems and galaxies is matter we can't see, like rogue planets (frankly I found this section slightly out of place). It then continues outwards to show the whole Milk Way galaxy, followed by the Local Group of galaxies, the Virgo Supercluster, and finally, the Observable Universe.
Neil reminds us that we might be physically small, but we don't think small. He then begins the story of when humanity learned it was not the center of the universe. To do this, the show talks first about Copernicus and his theory that the Earth was not the center of the universe. This was a scandalous idea at the time, and rejected by the church which controlled most of the civilized world. The show then tells the story of a Dominican Monk I had never heard of: Giordano Bruno. Bruno was a monk who came up with his own ideas of the universe after read Copernicus, as well as Lucretius's De rerum natura.
Bruno was expelled from his Order for his belief that the Earth was not the center of the universe, but this did not stop him from continuing. In fact, he expanded on his belief to a vision similar to our own model of the universe. What I love about Bruno is that in all of this, he still believed in a Creator God. His vision of an infinite God only helped with his infinite cosmology. Bruno traveled across Europe with his message of a infinite universe. He was eventually arrested in Italy, tried, and found guilty of heresy. He was martyred in 1600.
The show explains the creation and expansion of the universe by compressing the entire history of the universe up until now into a calendar year. I have seen this before, I believe in the original Cosmos. In fact, some, of not a lot of the wording, is the same as the original version. In this compressed state, starts do not begin to form until January 10th. Our sun is not created until August 31st. Life does not occur until December 17th. The dinosaurs go extinct the morning of December 30th. Humanity has been around for about an hour. All of recorded history has happened in the last 14 seconds.
The episode ends with Neil telling a personal story of the first time he met Carl Sagan. It was a sweet story about a day in 1974 when Carl invited Neil to spend the afternoon with him in Ithica, NY.
For the most part, I enjoyed this first episode. I appreciate the fact that the producers gave a nod not only to Carl Sagan, but the original Cosmos itself. There were many parts of this episode that were very similar to parts of Cosmos I had previously watched -- possibly all from the first episode (I'm not sure).
I look forward to next week.
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