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“The universe is expanding at an alarming rate!” [A Few Things Ill Considered]
Okay, sorry about that title…it is an actual quote from a History Channel documentary on, well, the universe. I nearly spat out my cool beverage with laughter when I heard it the first time and have really wanted to share it since then. I have yet to finish watching that series on the huge DVD disk set I bought because, despite the fascinating topic and the decent information content, they tried so hard to be dramatic in every aspect it just became tedious. Every topic seemed to turn into some new graphic simulation of Planet Earth being devoured, exploded, ice-balled, drowned, bombarded what-have-you’d into oblivion, as often as possible complete with screaming people and ruined cities.
The underlying problem they are trying to solve is the central problem of science out-reach and communication. Basically, it is a real challenge to make scientific information relevant and intuitive. Hence every large volume is converted into numbers of olympic sized swimming pools, every height measured in stacks of elephants. But lets face it, that still doesn’t work.
Which brings me to the actual topic of this post:
I don’t really like it. Eli disagrees. I won’t explain why, it just so happens that this guy has already explained it to my satisfaction. But I’m not against it, or outraged or calling for its digital destruction, I just don’t think it is useful in the end.
Mind you, I really don’t have any better way to get the danger and the urgency across to an apathetic general population so kudos to SkS for trying. The climate change emergency really is an emergency but it is a dumbfoundingly different kind of emergency.
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2013/12/the-universe-is-expanding-at-an-alarming-rate/
