I feel like that’s what today was mostly about…at least tonight was, anyway.
Now that I sit down and think about it, there wasn’t a whole lot about the DAY today that was lazy at all. It was pretty packed, in fact. Brunch with friends in the morning, Easter photo shoot at the Zoomies with the coops, then golf, then agility class with Coops, and then the afore-mentioned laziness on the couch for the evening. It was one of those nights that just disappears. I honestly can’t tell you how the hours went past, because I don’t feel like I did enough to warrant how fast they did, in fact, go by.
But, go by they did. I did watch an episode of Cosmos. Is it heresy to say that I wasn’t actually that impressed with the first episode? I mean, it was pretty, and I freaking LOVE Neil deGrass Tyson…but the content of the episode wasn’t all that interesting to me. See, I’m a huge Nova watcher on PBS. That program is genius; all the cutting edge science topics they touch on. Cosmos, on the other hand, at least that first episode, was like something a museum or planetarium would show. In a word: general. It was broad to the point where nothing they were talking about on the show really got my attention, because it was all stuff I already knew about. It was much more “hey, look! Science is cool, too!” and less “hey look and what scientists just figured out!”
This second episode of Cosmos was much more interesting. It’s still too general for me, it still feels like a Disneyland “science land” piece or something I’d see in my middle school classroom, but there were several tidbit in this episode covering ground I hadn’t *seen* before. Like, tracing the evolution of the eye, for example. Or, the sequence exploring Titan, or the homage to Sagan’s animated tracing of the evolution of man. And, I also didn’t feel it was soap-boxy at all when Neil took to task about how so many people treat the Theory of Evolution like it’s an opinion as opposed to a scientific fact. So yeah…I warmed to the show, if only slightly. And, I will say this: it IS a gorgeously done show. The graphics are immense, and it’s got the right host. I can do without that stupid ship, though. Anyone else with me? They definitely could have done better in the design department on THAT thing. A ship of the imagination should be AWESOME. Not a shiny teardrop.
I’m done hating 😛
I think I only really bring it up because what I’ve read from everyone else is how perfect the show is. Do I think it’s perfect that we have Cosmos back up on a national network? Fuck yeah. But I’d like to see some more exciting stuff on screen than “standing up in the universe” and how we evolved from fish. That’s elementary school stuff. Let’s talk about fucking dark matter.
Which segues into the second show I watched some of tonight. A “Beyond the Wormhole” on dark matter. Sooo freaking fascinating! So, in case you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, beyond science fiction imagination…we’ve observed in the past few decades the way light reacts to gravity on incredibly large scales, through both time and space. We can calculate how mass creates gravity, which in turn bends light, or in more practical terms, distorts how light reaches us (like holding a wine glass up to your computer screen, and seeing how it distorts the text of this blog entry).
The weird thing, though, is that we can estimate the mass of the stars, planets, etc. that are in the way of that light that’s being distorted, and calculate the gravitational forces all that mass will exert on the light…and it doesn’t add up. Like, not even close. The light is being distorted FIVE TIMES more than it should be based on the mass we can see…which can only mean one thing: not all mass is visible. In fact, MOST mass isn’t visible.
And, ladies and gents, we have the theory of “dark matter,” simply meaning, matter that does not react to light. We can’t shine light on this matter and see it. LIGHT reacts to dark matter, or it’s gravity, but not vice versa.
Pretty cool shit, huh? And if that’s the case, then that means that 80% of the *actual* total sum of matter that surrounds us, is completely invisible. At least, on a cosmic scale. I have no idea if this invisible matter is distributed “evenly” around us, or if it’s what “space” possibly is mostly made of, or what. But it is out there. The math tells us it has to be.
So yeah, Cosmos. Give me some of THAT shit, and I’ll be crawling up your ass like everyone else. Until then, I’ll be obligatorily glad to have a “science show” on network TV, and hoping that it eventually shows me something really interesting and new.
This blog should have been called “Cosmos” 😛
Too late now! What’s done is done. Tomorrow, I go with the Ho to look at some suits, and then it’s Baseball’s opening day! Maybe…I just looked up the weather forecast and it’s 100% for rain in Oakland. Mother Nature finally decides NorCal should get rain, and it’s on opening day. Le sigh…
I have something new to write about, though, that baseball is here. And, we’ll see. I think I will. I want to do a whole write-up on Daric Barton making our opening day roster…so yeah. I’m excited.
And tired! Good night!