Showing posts with label Neil deGrasse Tyson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neil deGrasse Tyson. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The Pluto Files is a Delight!

I've always enjoyed when Neil deGrasse Tyson makes an appearance on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report. He is funny, personable, and wears ties with planets on them: what could be better? An episode of Nova starring Tyson and dealing with the controversial classification Pluto, of course!

Throughout this episode, Tyson travels across the country on a Pluto-related mission, focusing on the question of whether Pluto is a planet. He talks with scientists who support Pluto's planethood and those who do not; he visits the hometown of the scientist who discovered Pluto and the town where the scientist's family now lives; he even visits Disney World to play with Pluto the dog.

Though the majority of the program is about science, it doesn't deal with it in a dry way. Tyson is hilarious! But the jokes didn't stop me from learning things (like, did you know that before the planet was named, Americans associated the name Pluto with a laxative? Or, that if the sun was represented by a balloon with an 8-foot diameter, the relative-size of Pluto could be represented by a ball bearing from a roller skate?) Plus, The Pluto Files shows multiple clips from the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. How could I not like it?

I give it a 4/5. Definitely worth watching, and it's only 50 minutes.