Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos

[Curmudgeoness]

Heads are exploding.

"Newton's laws swept away the need for a master clockmaker."

My favorite line from last night's Cosmos. There were plenty of other references to religion and how it is now irrelevant. His discussion of why the cave dwellers thought that there was some higher power, since they had no way of understanding their surroundings. And how he said that we now have answers to many of the things that occur, and we know that there are more answers, even though we haven't solved it all---so we don't need a god. I was actually cheering him on.

[pokerfan]

1. A Gem From Newton’s Principia

Well worth reading. No calculus required.

Isaac Newton’s Mathematica Principia (1687) has been described as the most important, but also the least read, scientific book ever written. It has been little read mostly because it has been little comprehended. The book is filled with complex geometric diagrams, and Newton’s explanations are brief, the assumption being that the reader’s mathematical knowledge and ability is very high. Indeed, Newton later admitted that he had made the book difficult, so that he would, as he put it, “avoid being baited by little smatterers in mathematicks”. The great physicist Richard Feynman once tried to read the section on the elliptical orbits of the planets, and eventually gave up, saying that Newton’s use of obscure properties of ellipses made the going too difficult. (Feynman’s response was to do what few others could have done: he created his own geometric proof. This proof is described in the book “Feynman’s Lost Lecture”).

However, there is at least one result that Newton derived in the Principia that is fairly easy to understand, and I will describe it in this post. It also happens to be one of the important theorems in the Principia: a proof that Kepler’s Second Law is a consequence of mechanics.

Read more: http://brightstartutors.com/blog/2011/a-gem-from-newtons-principia/

[Curmudgeoness]

10. Why did you make me (try to) read that???

My brain hurts. Are you sure there wasn't a calculus requirement there?

I like the way it was presented by Neil better.

[pokerfan]

13. but NGT didn't show the proof

Feynman' s Lost Lecture is another geometric proof.

[Curmudgeoness]

14. This is one of those math geek jokes, right?

Like I wanted proof!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. He talked about how Halley's prediction of a comet's return liberated us from fear.

The story of Halley persuading Newton to write Principia and get it published was very interesting and touching. Tyson said something like, "The man who brought us into the scientific age had but one good friend."

Comets always predicted bad stuff happening before Halley compared data and realized that some comets return, like the one named after him.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. Fear/god....interchangeable, aren't they?

There are so many good moments in this series. I rarely pay attention to anything on TV, and I was intent on Cosmos....and cheering the whole time.

I wish that I had such a good friend----it seemed that it took a lot of work to befriend Halley.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. Yes, religions control people through fear.

I do not understand how an intelligent adult would tolerate being insulted to his face in church, by a preacher telling the whole congregation how sinful and worthless they are, because of a couple of fruit-munching simpletons in a fairy tale, but millions tolerate those generic and baseless insults.

Yeah, you have free will, but if you're not a Christian, you're going to hell......suuuure.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. Will there be a DU A&A meetup planned

when we all make it to hell? I'll be hanging out in the First Circle.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. I hope so.

I'm not sure what happens in which circle since I haven't read Dante.

Of course, all the cool people like Mark Twain and Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould and Gandhi will be there.

[Curmudgeoness]

12. It won't be so bad.

All that you expect to see should be in the First Circle (Limbo). That is where the "virtuous pagans" and "unbaptized" reside. It ain't so hell-like in the First Circle. And there is good company.

Everything I know about Dante's Inferno comes from here, even though I did read it years ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)

[onager]

3. My favorite line...

Early in the show, when NDT was talking about pattern recognition and said it "causes us to see a sacred image in a grilled-cheese sandwich." ROFL...

Thanks for posting this. I was going to start a thread about it but you saved me the trouble.

Another interesting part for me: Halley proving the motions of the stars by comparing his own measurements with those of ancient Greek astronomers.

We can probably thank Alexander The Great for part of that discovery. When Alexander conquered Babylon, he captured over 1000 years of detailed records kept by Babylonian astrologers.

Astrology was a major part of Babylonian religion. The astrologers watched the stars to make their usual BS predictions about the King's bowel movements etc. etc.

Alexander shipped the Babylonian records back to Greece. The Greeks didn't care about the Babylonian religion. They ignored the Woo Factor and incorporated the Babylonian data about the positions of the stars into their own observations.

So that over 1000 years later, Halley had a huge database of knowledge about where the stars had been centuries ago. And could prove that they weren't in the same places in his own time.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. LMAO

Yes, that was quite a hit below the belt to those who believe that these are the ways that god "appears" to us today.

When you discuss the astrologers and all their records, kept for religious purposes, I suppose that we can admit that there has been at least one benefit to society that religion brought us. Well, that, and getting rid of those pesky witches in Salem.

[deucemagnet]

4. "You don't talk about the spherical earth with NASA...

...and then say let's give equal time to the flat-earthers." --NdGT

http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2014/03/24/Creationists-want-equal-airtime-on-Cosmos/5881395675954/

[Curmudgeoness]

8. The entertainment never ends.

If he keeps up like this, I may have a new hero......and all of my heroes so far are long gone.

[pink-o]

15. And his simple explanation as to why the earth is FAR older than 6,000 years.

Using the speed of light and the distance of stars we can see with the naked eye: even though light travels faster than any other phenomenon, the earth would have to be billions of years old for light to reach from those stars so far away. Now, I'm no mathematician but even I can see the absolute irrefutable truth there.

Once I quit trying to make sense of woo and God stuff--once I realized humans were nothing special and not infused with a lofty purpose--everything got real simple and easy to make sense of!

[skepticscott]

16. The young-earth creationists

and their apologists over in Religion will claim that god started the light on its way somewhere out in empty space, to make it LOOK like it was coming from further away...to test our faith. Or our sanity.

Guess which one wins with the ones over there?

[onager]

18. Amazing, isn't it?

Using the scientific wonder that is the Internet, in the 21st century...

...to argue in favor of nonsense that should have been junked centuries ago.

I see the arguments every day, all over the Internet. But they still amaze me.

Sometimes when I'm watching a true-crime show about some scammer or Ponzi scheme artist, I ask myself: "Can people really be that gullible?" Then I remember that about 50% of my fellow Americans believe in angels...

[Curmudgeoness]

17. Ain't that the truth.

Everything got real simple and easy to make sense of....or at least easy to accept. We don't have to sweat it. Or argue it.

But as to the irrefutable truth, it is amazing how many arguments can be made to explain it. It is like some people have just crawled out of a cave and are in awe of all the wonders that have no explanation except a god. If I were a believer, I would at least accept the science that we have learned to date. But then again, I would never be able to be the believer who thought that the earth was 6000 years old.