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I'm currently reading (Re-reading actually) Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and in a chapter where he talked about Venus and how hot Venus is (Venus is actually the hotte
by chistev 6mo ago
I'm currently reading (Re-reading actually) Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and in a chapter where he talked about Venus and how hot Venus is (Venus is actually the hottest planet in the solar system despite Mercury being closer to the Sun - although this wasn't mentioned in the book), and how the space probes that were sent there met an ugly fate, he had this interesting footnote which I want to share -
"In this stifling landscape, there is not likely to be anything alive, even creatures very different from us. Organic and other conceivable biological molecules would simply fall to pieces. But, as an indulgence, let us imagine that intelligent life once evolved on such a planet. Would it then invent science? The development of science on Earth was spurred fundamentally by observations of the regularities of the stars and planets. But Venus is completely cloud-covered. The night is pleasingly long - about 59 Earth days long but nothing of the astronomical universe would be visible if you looked up into the night sky of Venus. Even the Sun would be invisible in the daytime; its light would be scattered and diffused over the whole sky - just as scuba divers see only a uniform enveloping radiance beneath the sea. If a radio telescope were built on Venus, it could detect the Sun, the Earth and other distant objects. If astrophysics developed, the existence of stars could eventually be deduced from the principles of physics, but they would be theoretical constructs only. I sometimes wonder what their reaction would be if intelligent beings on Venus one day learned to fly, to sail in the dense air, to penetrate the mysterious cloud veil 45 kilometers above them and eventually to emerge out the top of the clouds, to look up and for the first time witness that glorious universe of Sun and planets and stars."
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Carl Sagan is an amazing author, and I've shared the famous excerpt from his book Pale Blue Dot multiple times before - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47565381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47565381
A few mentions of his books in my blog post here - https://www.rxjourney.net/30-things-i-know https://www.rxjourney.net/30-things-i-know
- iberator 6mo agoSagan is good for high schoolers maybe. Not really scientific books at all. He is popular because he was hyped in the media for being accessible. Those people dumb down science for the masses - it harms society on the long run imo
- chistev 6mo agoIf a science book is too heavy, you'll get less people interested in science than would normally be. Carl Sagan significantly influenced Neil deGrasse Tyson (another popular science writer), for example. But I'm not sure if Tyson would have pursued science regardless of Sagan's influence.
- ghighi7878 6mo agoAnd me. I have a PhD in computational fluid dynamics
- gbil 6mo agoThis really struck a chord for me. The majority of the people I know - including me - want to be drawn into a topic somehow and that somehow is story telling. People like Sagan and Tyson are amazing story tellers, they will draw you in with their use of language, their voice and pace and will open the doors for everything else. This is how great teachers do it and this is what is missing for most of the people to be interested into a topic, no matter how basic it is.
- piva00 6mo agoMaking information more accessible and approachable never harms society in the long run. Your view is just a snobbish and rigid one, Sagan made science topics interesting for more people, from those people very likely many got inspired enough to pursue deeper science training. Dumbing down is necessary to make it interesting for people who feel it's unapproachable, it breaks a barrier, I have no idea how you look at this and think "this is harming society"...
- gnz11 6mo agoI’ve read a lot of hot takes on HN, but Carl Sagan harming society is on a whole new level.
- ultratalk 6mo agohttps://xkcd.com/397/ https://xkcd.com/397/ (the zombie feynman one)
- igleria 6mo ago> sometimes wonder what their reaction would be if intelligent beings on Venus one day learned to fly, to sail in the dense air, to penetrate the mysterious cloud veil 45 kilometers above them and eventually to emerge out the top of the clouds, to look up and for the first time witness that glorious universe of Sun and planets and stars." like when in matrix revolutions they climb up above the clouds and see the sun for the first time :')
- chistev 6mo agoHaven't seen that. Any YouTube link of that scene?
- igleria 6mo agohere you go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7UC3TdBx-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7UC3TdBx-8
- chistev 6mo agoThanks
- Ancapistani 6mo agoSo - somehow, I’ve not seen any of the Matrix series after the original one (which I, of course, loved). Now I want to sit down and watch them all, so thanks for that I guess!
- 4fterd4rk 6mo agoGet ready to be disappointed
- matthewsinclair 6mo agoI went back about 2 years ago and speed ran all of them. Somehow the sequels seemed substantially better than I remember them. In fact, on the first watch I was _so_ disappointed with 2 that I didn’t even watch 3. 20-odd years later, I had a very different (positive) experience. Not sure why. Maybe I was in a good mood.
- jareklupinski 6mo ago> The development of science on Earth was spurred fundamentally by observations of the regularities of the stars and planets. perhaps on Venus, it would be spurred on by the creatures there trying to understand why a gaseous swirl goes in a certain direction, or why a vortex does what it does for as long as it has to they may be better at fluids and flow than we are :) worth sending a message in a bottle at least
- Neywiny 6mo agoYeah I think even if we didn't have the stars, there's plenty of other natural phenomena to spark science. Sparks being one of them. But pretty much any field other than astronomy could be a starting point. Meteorology is certainly a possibility
- PearlRiver 6mo agoLots of people live in places were they will never see the stars! But luckily we can travel. I was awestruck visiting La Palma.