Cosmos
How groovy is a happy accident? I was flipping around channels last night looking for something to fill the void until we could finally watch last week's episode of Lost. One of the higher range channels -The Science Channel- had something about super-massive black holes. So I flicked it on for the last ten minutes and realized I would never be able to get anything out of it at that point, especially as it went right to commercial as I clicked over.
I almost changed the channel. But the first commercial was an advert for Carl Sagan's Cosmos. I just about jumped out of my seat. Even more fortuitous, it appears to be the first episode!
Back in 1980, I remember my mother telling me there was going to be the big space-science extravaganza on PBS by a scientist who was going to explain the universe. I was always a big space geek. Anything to do with space, the solar system and the universe --fiction and non-fiction-- I wanted to read, watch it, consume it. So of course I sat down from the word go and was thrilled to death each week. An hour was never so short.
Sagan's Cosmos was sort of an entry drug to science. It showed that it could be interesting and fun without being dry. Sagan's unique speech patterns seem to always hold on to wonderment whenever describing even the most basic of theories.
He introduced me to all kinds of planetary and stellar concepts based in reality. There are things from that program that I have never forgotten (like the term googol --where google derives its name-- is an actual term. A googol is 10100 and a googolplex is 10 to the power of a googol: 10googol.) I was 12 when it was on. I never wanted to be a policeman or a doctor. I always wanted to be an astronaut.
Just like the original The Lathe of Heaven, I haven't seen Cosmos since it aired. I'm sure some of it won't hold up as well, but I don't care. I've set up TiVo to tape them and hopefully can convince somebody to watch it with me.
posted by Evil Wayne @ 10:00 AM
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