Gadgetory

this week TV audiences around the world zipped through the universe during the premiere episode of cosmos a spacetime Odyssey the show whose premiere was simulcast across ten US networks and broadcast in more than 180 countries is an ambitious continuation of Carl Sagan's 1980 classic and it wouldn't have been possible without dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson a renowned astrophysicist internet meme and outspoken science advocate who was the daunting task of stepping into Sagan shoes neil degrasse tyson everyone's favorite astrophysicist Twitter personality and now host of cosmos a spacetime Odyssey this is a huge potential audience that you're reaching here what is the audience that you are hoping to reach out of that just sort of massive pool of potential viewers I quote the executive producer and writer of the series and Riaan who wrote for the original cosmos it's anyone with a beating heart and then I got me thinking well do zombies have beating heart because I want to get them too but it's everyone is the audience because science is not the purview of a demographic it's the purview of us all as human beings as a species who are charged by ourselves with being tenders the people to tend to our civilization I mean who else are you gonna how are you gonna do it there's somebody from the outside gonna say oh fix that and kind of move this in let me give you some advice there thank you goodbye I'll go back to my planet no we are here masters of our own destiny masters of our own demise and I noticed you know you touch on religion and you touch on faith and it got me thinking when you're reaching such a big audience I mean do you need to sort of adjust the way you navigate some of those waters sort of the way you navigate you know faith and science in an episode like that I mean is that something that navigation implies that there are some land mines that we're avoiding we are offering science the world as science has come to reveal it we are also describing stories of scientists of the past thinkers searchers of the past who have arrived at emergent truths and we show the struggles they encountered upon sharing those truths with others so the issue of that first episode which featured Giordano Bruno our hero of the story he's by the way a monk these are he's a monk the Christian monk and he dies a Christian monk he's martyred for his ideas his ideas were bigger than the ideas prevailing the so here is not religion or not religion because he's religious and who's persecuted by the the Inquisition so it's not religion or non religion it's emergent truths about the universe versus dogma and Dogma can manifest in any number of ways would be political Dogma yeah social cultural dogma things your community doesn't want you to believe or accept is true so you deny it in spite of it actually being true so in that first episode he my favorite line from it is as he's being attacked by people who are sure that earth is in the center of the known universe and earth is the object of God's creation he's thinking that the stars in the night sky are just like the Sun and if they are then they must also have planets and if they have planets then they might have life and if they have life then God is bigger than just God of the earth it's God of the universe this is his idea so do you want to call that anti religion I'm saying it's what happened yeah and we're presenting it and it's an idea that was where they attempted to suppress it because it conflicted with Darwin sure ended up being a pretty good idea really good idea I also noticed in the episode last night that there are these so many elements that are so true to the original things like the spaceship of the imagination or the cosmic calendar was it important to you when you were coming up with this 2014 edition or reboot as it's been called to to honor that original well so I think the word reboot showed up in a very early press release but it's not it's it's a continuation of the story all the stories are new for all 13 episodes we continue to use some of the potent storytelling tools that were developed in the original series the cosmic calendar but now brought into visual effects that are just stunning as well as the spaceship of the imagination which got some mixed reviews and its early incarnation will wisely there what's he doing and we were ready to just not even go there until an idea was put forward for what the new spaceship for the imagination might look like you gotta admit it's badass I don't you've seen it yeah is in it it's just bad it's a badass spaceship but it's a ship that's not just through space as you will see in later episodes it goes through molecules and dewdrops and it goes wherever we need to go to tell the story that we're telling and it becomes a literal and a figurative vehicle to enable that storytelling I mean obviously you've done you know plenty of TV radio public appearances etc how was filming this different or unique or challenging for you I mean everything everything everything about it when you see the the awards ceremonies where people are thanking the whole list that list is a fraction of who really should be thanked they're thanking the important people who will influence their later lives but the gaffer and the you know the sound design and and the graphic doesn't it just goes on and on and on so all of that was novel for me and it's not something I do all the time I mean I the next time I just rather stay home with somebody else really yeah because it was I was a lot of time away from home and I you know my kids are growing up and I want to see them grow up continue to see them grow up so it's not like I had two years yeah I'm not doing anything else just book me around the world and film this know it you know it interrupted other things in life so I don't regret having done it but the reality of it is is not something I would do as a career I'd there's not oh I got five other film projects no yeah no go back to the lab I'm ready and then I'm going to the lab yeah right well earned I think we can all say what's next what what do you hope to well that's a great question I want to continue to write which was put on hold for a book in contract and another one half written and another one that's an idea Wow and I like writing because I'm at home I can do that or in my office that I want to reinvigorate my research program as a scientist that's what fuels my energy to even communicate in the first place so I don't want to ever lose track of that so I'm happy to just recede you know for years let somebody else let the press go to other people and you know at the at the end of that for the viewer for the audience what's the call to action here yes through there people not in this audience but this audience would be in the category of people who know they like science okay we got that then the people who don't know that they like science I don't think they're watching verge okay because they don't even know that that's something interesting to do cosmos will fan a flame that might have just gone dormant within them I'm pretty sure of that and but then there's the third category of person the people who know they don't like science had what are they doing what are they saying you know that's not a problem unless you that's how you feel and you're in power yeah then that that's dangerous because in this 21st century science matters in a big way and the people who don't who know they don't like science or cherry-pick science to resonate with their philosophies they are I think they just don't know what science is I don't think they learned what science is and say okay I'm gonna reject that I think they never knew it so I'm not here to beat them over the head for feeling the way they do I'm here to show them something that they might not have ever learned what science is how it works why it works and what it means for a scientific truth to emerge from the efforts of observations and experiment and at that point I think it's harder to turn around and say while you're on your mobile you're on your smartphone listening to the car GPS tell you to turn left say I don't like science I don't need something that's like what so so it's it's you know it's a it's an awakening and after that I'm not gonna tell you how to vote I'm not gonna tell you where to live I'm not going to tell you anything but whatever however you decide what your life will be I think there is no rational argument for you to defend that you want to be less informed about it rather than more cosmos is a way for you to become more informed about the role of science in all of our lives and you worry that that role has been diminished sort of I guess I'm talking about it on a federal level you just mentioned people in power and I know you've talked before about sort of a need to fund NASA to a greater extent for example do you worry that we're maybe sort of missing out on breakthroughs or new technologies or new scientific truths then clearly oh yeah oh yeah and the one of the many good things about science although bad for us here in America is science does not sense as borders no one has exclusive rights to make a discovery so if America fades it just watch other countries rise up for having done so for having not done so for investing in science and technology that they came to recognize and understand are there the seeds and of the engines of tomorrow's economies so if we don't China will rise up in the Russia Singapore somebody's gonna come up and and take that slack as so as a scientist I don't really care when somebody does it but as an American like I grew up in an era where we led the world and everything everything it was essentially everything everything that actually shaped the 20th century we invented computers we invented the assembly line we invented look at the things that are all around us now and what role Americans play we invented television all right invented radio all right commercial you know the radio there was some Italians who thought about radio waves but radio as a communication as a means of entertain that so so much of that shaped the century and I don't want to be on the sidelines for the 21st century I want to be there and you know what about kids I think this is obviously a show that will appeal to them if they're allowed to stay up and watch it what should they be taking from this what do you not should what do you hope they take from this no the kids kids are already scientists I think they'll enjoy it they'll enjoy the visual effects they'll enjoy the storytelling we're storytelling species we like telling stories and listening to stories there already there I don't have to worry about them I worry about the adults and adults outnumber children five to one once you are informed by how and why science works you will recognize that that'll be the center of so many issues that come up the challenges that face our culture our civilization going forward on energy and transportation and health security and these go beyond just oh I can't wait till the next app comes out for my smartphone these are bigger issues that require major attention and investments without it we'll just muscle just move back to the cave yeah well we'll end up you haven't taken a sip of your I took well I did take one set one I did take see how purple it is it's this what it looks like when it's in barrel and so would you say that this is a I put it away and open it in eight years eight years were eight years too soon maybe fine I'll give you five five years I can't wait that long so what you do is you buy wine and then put it in the closet and then five years later you can pull out a five year old bottle every time you buy a brand new bottle I don't know if I have that kind of patience yeah it takes you have to think about tomorrow yeah okay I'm not quite there yet in my life or in my wine collection so I mean what kind of wine would you suggest that somebody drink say next Sunday when they're sitting down to watch cosmos oh well actually I have a great quote from Galileo her name and I'm gonna I don't appear phrasing I don't have the exact words and he would have said it more poetically but I give it my best shot the Sun holds all the planets in their appointed orbits yet can ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the world to do well on that note cheers congratulations Galileo and all those who wondered about how to turn sunlight into gold you