Mar

15

Maybe the most fundamental thread on Spec List has been counting/data/figuring things out, so here is a marvelous two-part video by 3Blue1Brown, with Terrence Tao, about how we determined various cosmic distances.

The Cosmic Distance Ladder, Part 1

The Cosmic Distance Ladder, Part 2

Additional commentary and corrections from Prof Tau

Gyve Bones writes:

This was a fascinating lunch lecture. Thank you. I first became fascinated with the story of how science and technology developed with the 1977 PBS series by James Burke "Connections" which told the story, without the aid of CGI graphics in my high school years. I was given the companion book for the series that Christmas by my very thoughtful mom. (It's also the story that launched my falling away from the Catholic faith in which I was raised, my teenage rebellion.)

Here's the episode which details how the Babylonian star tables by Ptolemy used by Copernicus were preserved from the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, found on papyrus scrolls in a cave backup library:

James Burke Connections, Ep. 2 "Death in the Morning"

Asindu Drileba responds:

Connections is so good. I really wish there was a remastered version (in HD at least). One of the things I still don't understand is how government funded broadcast corporations like PBS, BBC and DW make such high quality non-fiction films. I would go to say the have the best non-fiction documentaries. Capitalism doesn't apparently do well when it comes to making non-fiction. What makes them so good? Are they just structured properly?

Gyve Bones replies:

Here is a very well mastered set of the videos for Connections (1978).

Peter Ringel adds:

there is a Conjecture, that astronomers are the more happy and humble people. I guess, this is because, it is all so vast and relative.


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