I was a little put off after watching the first episode. But the latest was pretty good. I’ll watch the next one.
Just have to get used to Tyson.
I learned a lot about Edmund Halley.
Were you eating squirrels while watching it?
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! We've visited three comets, slammed a 643 pound mass of copper into one, and flown by several more including Halleys. . . NOT ONCE has any ice or water been observed or found. None. Zip! NADA! The closest was the observation of some hydroxyl radicals (OH) released when the Deep Impact probe impacted Comet 9P / Tempel in amounts less than 1/100th the amount expected for H2O. Yet there was no water at all. In fact, except by orbit, every comet was essentially indistinguishable from every asteroid we've visited, flown by, or probed.
But her is Tyson, nine years later, ignoring all the results of those fly-bys, touch-downs, and the impact and STILL talking about "ice and rock mountains!" That theory has been FALSIFIED! In spades!
I expect current science from this "update," not a rehash of discredited, old theories.
I liked it. I already knew a lot about Newton, but not that much about his relationship with Halley, although I knew it was through Halley’s efforts that the Principia came into being. I also new about his spat with Hooke, and there is more detail to be known about the technicalities of their correspondence. I think Newton let his guard down at one point, and Hooke caught him in an error, which peeved Newton no end, needless to say. I think the dramatisation was largely correct, though.
I noticed they used a cannon in their animation of Newton’s illustration showing the ballistics of an earth orbit. Newton referred to a “projected stone” and hypothesized an airless earth for the sake of the example, so he was being very abstract. He was connecting the IDEA of ballistics to the IDEA of celestial motion. whether he had any notion that this connection would become actual, I don’t know.
I noticed that when the host enumerated the various omens attributed to comets, he mentioned several African tribes, but here as previously, he showed traditional Cro-Magnon, i.e. European, cave man types to illustrate “our ancestors”. I suppose compromises were made.
I thought he could have said more about the Principia, i.e. that it was patterned after Euclid’s Elements. He could have done a “Gee whiz” zoom through of some of the diagrams, too. The work itself is a marvel to behold.
I suppose he had to fight just to put it on the table.
As before, I thought the space animations were cliched and dismal. It amazes me that critics have called them mind-boggling, etc. We’ve been saturated with that stuff, and it is by no means “realistic” !
The cartoons have been the surprise attraction for me.