🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <21372@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Tom Tedrick) writes:
>I saw the first episode last night, and it was superb.
>It got a bad review in the local paper, but I doubt that
>the reviewer is a scientist ... I guess the reviewer didn't
>appreciate the subtlety of some of the points that were made.

I plan to watch it again, but I was a bit disappointed.  Oh, I enjoyed
PM's comments about the role of observation (something sorely lacking
in the field of computer sicence)!  I enjoyed watching things in the
Exploratorium where we hold ACM/SIGGRAPH meetings!  But the sequence
about Galileo, well, while neat, left me a bit cold.  The problem isn't
PM and this series (I don't think it's BBC).  The problem is science
education.

I've seen Jacob Bronowski, Carl Sagan, James Burke (got his phone # from
Lynn White), and others talk about Galileo and some of the other topics
Morrison talked about and will talk about, but we the readers of this
list are the converted.  I wonder about that reviewer and what it is in
science education we do and what the public expects which turns people
off to science.  We don't have enough scientists (and engineers) in
this country.  [We have an overabundance of lawyers.] How many times
will we have to rehash the above?  We need to move on, because that's
what most of us (myself included) got into science for (those new ideas,
we know the old ones from reading books, thank God for Nova).  I just
wonder about the `harm' we are doing to our kids to prevent more
scientists.  I see fewer and fewer each year with that certain "fire in
their eyes," but it is neat to see it.

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

Like Eugene Miya, I was disappointed, although perhaps not deeply.
Enough about Galileo already!  Is there a PBS science show that
doesn't spend an episode on this guy?  What is it, a union regulation?

Regarding Burke:  I enjoyed CONNECTIONS tremendously, but found TDTUC
overblown and lacking in real content.  In their defense, I should
mention that both shows were essays in the *history* of science, and
not science itself.

What I liked about CONNECTIONS, and what I tried unsuccessfully to
convince my colleagues of when I found myself in an historically-
oriented interdisciplinary course, was that the big picture was
presented in a mosaic of details.  He tried to simulate this in TDTUC,
but much of the big picture was merely told us in bold general
pronouncements, rather than emerging from the orchestration of detail. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael P. Smith	mps@cs.duke.edu	/ {seismo,decvax}!mcnc!duke!mps

In article <21372@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick) writes:
> I saw the first episode last night, and it was superb.

Hmmm. I liked it alright, but I didn't think it was superb. The picnic thing
at the beginning was pathetic, and the whole optical illusion shtick was
not really in line with the thrust of the presentation, which was about
the importance of instrumentation. It was at least relevant.

I liked the Galileo stuff, since I'm something of a buff, and I enjoyed
the craftsman angle.  I think he erred in not showing the tiny field of
view Galileo had to put with. ( He represented the magnification by zooming
from a panoramic camera shot. ) There was more he might have mentioned,
such as how the crater Copernicus was tremendously oversized in Galileo's
drawings ( he did show the drawing and discuss the crater.) I think this was
due to his tiny field of view, which prevented him from seeing the whole
moon at once. Come to think of it, this would have tied in the optical illusion
stuff a little better.

And why couldn't he have shown a visual recreation of Galileo's telescopic
views of the moon and the Jovian satellites? I would have loved that.
He could have showed the successive improvements in resolution, right
down to the lunar soil and sodium volcanoes. YEAH!!! But he didn't.
Instead we got talking heads.

> It got a bad review in the local paper, but I doubt that
> the reviewer is a scientist ... I guess the reviewer didn't
> appreciate the subtlety of some of the points that were made.

Well, I wish it had been MORE detailed and MORE technical. I think
he ( "he" is Philip Morrison, by the way ) ended up in a no man's land
where he bores the casual viewer and afficianado alike. He should have
gone the whole route and made a hardcore educational series out of it, like
Mechanical Universe or Earth Explored. Earth Explored! Now there's a
science series!

> Anyway, I recommend it highly.

Ok, I'll watch.

	Lew Mammel, Jr.

I walked into Printer's, Inc. bookstore last evening and saw the book
based on the series.  The writing looks much more interesting as are the
sources.  A couple of the next episodes also have interesting topics.
(I did not buy the book, only rarely, I use libraries more, but....)
I will have to talk to a climbing partner who works as a physicist at
the Exploratorium and will ask him for his opinions.  P.S. The Nova
on the Exploratorium is more interesting.

Science isn't just sitting around philosphizing.  It's a really neat process.

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

Albert Eistein: The lights are on, and everybody's home.
						--Robin Williams