Genius by Stephen Hawking

[TomK]

Well, I enjoyed the two episodes but suspect they won't have been to everyone's taste. It used a format I'm not sure I've seen before but it was good to see people without a lot of background in astronomy and physics figuring things out for themselves.

I also hope the series helps some to stop spelling Stephen Hawking's name incorrectly. He deserves a bit more respect than that.

[Kelena]

Thank you. I will DVR it. There is a tendency in America -- perhaps of all humankind-- to build up heroes and then tear them down. As Joni Mitchell sang in "For the Roses", just when you get a taste for glory, that's when they start bringing out "the hammers, the boards and the nails".

Hawking has popularized science and has a knack for explaining complex scientific concepts in an accessible way. The very idea of science has been challenged from Da Vinci to the present day, so I am glad he is still with us and still doing what he does under circumstances that would be disheartening and difficult for a lesser man.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

The very idea of science has been challenged from Da Vinci to the present day, so I am glad he is still with us

Eleanor Roosevelt writing about science:

Either science will control us or we will control it. That is the sum and substance of the matter. By becoming its master we can build the kind of world we want to have. Nothing can stop us but inaction, lack of imagination, lack of courage, and lack of trained knowledge.

In the very near future, in some cases even today, we see that an enlightened and imaginative use of scientific knowledge, and a constant extension of that knowledge into the unknown, impinges upon almost every element of our lives. Its effect will be felt in our economy, in the food we eat, in our physical health and well-being.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/05/17...n-science/

Oscar Wilde's Last Words: "Either this wallpaper goes, or I do."

[Punatic007]

Thanks for the heads up. Science at it's finest IMO.

[snorkle]

Stephen Hawking is a fraud. He claims to have ALS(Lou Gehrig's disease), but I know for a fact that he never played baseball.

[PaulW]

I apologize for my dumb joke (which I borrowed from Ricky Gervais). I admire Stephen Hawking a lot. I'll definitely be watching that series when it's available for download.

[TomK]

Kelena,

"Hawking has popularized science and has a knack for explaining complex scientific concepts in an accessible way. The very idea of science has been challenged from Da Vinci to the present day, so I am glad he is still with us and still doing what he does under circumstances that would be disheartening and difficult for a lesser man."

Well said.

[TomK]

Apologies, too late now, but was caught up in all sorts of crap earlier. In any case, the third and fourth episodes were shown tonight. I didn't catch a lot of the third episode ("Why are we here?") but caught most of the fourth - "Where did the universe come from?"

One of the best explanations I've ever seen of the Big Bang and the expanding universe, all done by starting from the very basics to advanced stuff using people to try and figure it out for themselves.

I hope it's shown again soon or is available online.

[HiloPuna]

PaulW

Please don't apologize. It was very funny coming from either of you. The dryer the humour the more it's about context; Ricky's on his major media and yours here !

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

I hope it's shown again soon or is available online.

If you have an iPad or a Roku streaming device, the PBS app for both platforms has all 4 episodes available to watch right now.

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
-Joseph Brodsky