# Cosmos: A Waste of Spacetime **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 10, 2014, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324 "2014-03-10T03:06:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/121 "2014-03-12T15:26:37Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > If so, I hope he was promptly corrected by more nuanced scientists. Beyond the fact that these are very different contexts, the term “Cambrian Explosion” is also a rather regrettable misnomer, despite Stephen Jay Gould’s captivating but rather misleading book on the subject. > > Maybe it’s just me, but referring to an “event” which took **~30 million years** to transpire as an “explosion” strikes me as being at least a _bit_ presumptuous, or am I too unforgiving in this? The reality is that that wrong-headed phrase has gifted creationists and ID’ers with untold millions of words of gleeful, anti-evolution bullshit to blather about endlessly. It would have been far better had that spurious phrase never been invented. Well, I then have to point out that you are also tossing Carl Sagan under the bus. > [@](#): > > “Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened — the Big Bang, the event that began our universe. Why it happened is the greatest mystery we know. That it happened is reasonably clear. All the matter and energy now in the universe was concentrated at extremely high density — a kind of cosmic egg, reminiscent of the creation myths of many cultures — perhaps into a mathematical point with no dimensions at all. It was not that all the matter and energy were squeezed into a minor corner of the present universe; rather, the universe, matter and energy and the space they fill, occupied a very small volume. There was not much room for events to happen in. > > “ **In that titanic cosmic explosion** , the universe began an expansion which has never ceased. It is misleading to describe the expansion of the universe as a sort of descending bubble viewed from the outside. By definition, nothing we can ever know about was outside. It is better to think of it from the inside, perhaps with grid-lines — imagined to adhere to the moving fabric of space — expanding uniformly in all directions. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it rapidly and cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then is now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum — from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated. As time passed, the fabric of space continued to expand, the radiation cooled and, in ordinary visible light, for the first time space became dark, as it is today.” > > — Carl Sagan, Cosmos, New York: Ballantine Books, 1993, pp. 200-201. (bolding mine) I think I begin to understand why Sagan was just appreciated, but not very well by his fellow scientists of the day, I would have to say that there was a little bit of jealousy for him being very capable of explaining science to the people. Of course there is no jealousy here but absolutism, besides the dictionary allowing for the use of “explosion” in this case, you are like a hammer that only sees nails; People that make science popular have to make things simple so people, but more importantly children, will be inspired to follow science and then learn more later about the proper scientific terms and make humanity progress. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/122 "2014-03-12T18:06:53Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > As for choosing Bruno, Druyan said they wanted a lesser known figure; I guess that’s why they didn’t go with the usual Galileo. I can’t wait until they get to Turing, and animate his chemical castration and ultimate suicide for being homosexual. Those crazy Brits! ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/123 "2014-03-12T19:18:18Z")
When Ambushed has an aneurysm because of how upset he is over this silly shit, can we call that an explosion? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/124 "2014-03-12T20:11:47Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > If you can’t describe the Big Bang as an “explosion”, how \*would \*you describe it? At the instant the universe came into existence, it was infinite in size and filled everywhere with a dense, hot fog of subatomic particles. As time passed, space itself stretched, cooling the fog and dispersing it. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/125 "2014-03-12T20:20:19Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > At the instant the universe came into existence, it was infinite in size and filled everywhere with a dense, hot fog of subatomic particles. As time passed, space itself stretched, cooling the fog and dispersing it. That’ll probably be in the more in depth episode. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/126 "2014-03-12T20:27:58Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > That’ll probably be in the more in depth episode. I doubt it. Everyone loves the stupid explosion metaphor so much. Explosions are fun! Yay! I bet they also get the cosmic red shift wrong: “Things that are far away are red-shifted because they’re moving away from us so fast! Because of the Big Bang explosion, don’t you know!” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/127 "2014-03-12T20:28:21Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > When Ambushed has an aneurysm because of how upset he is over this silly shit, can we call that an explosion? No. That will happen when he will notice that Carl Sagan himself called it a “titanic explosion”. Then we all should duck and take cover for all the expanding biological matter tossed all over. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/128 "2014-03-12T20:36:14Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I doubt it. Everyone loves the stupid explosion metaphor so much. Explosions are fun! Yay! > > I bet they also get the cosmic red shift wrong: “Things that are far away are red-shifted because they’re moving away from us so fast! Because of the Big Bang explosion, don’t you know!” I used to think red shift due to dark energy expansion was the same as Doppler Effect. I found it interesting and read more. I used to read comic books as a kid. I immediately started reading more and pointing out how ridiculous comics physics is. That’s not totally unlike listening to Bruno and deciding to find out more. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/129 "2014-03-12T20:36:19Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > At the instant the universe came into existence, it was infinite in size and filled everywhere with a dense, hot fog of subatomic particles. As time passed, space itself stretched, cooling the fog and dispersing it. And the visual to this is? Inside you see nothing. There is no outside. The first step is to convince people it really happened. Then we can talk about inflation. And remember that the term"Big Bang" was coined by Hoyle, no fan of the theory. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/130 "2014-03-12T20:46:24Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And the visual to this is? It wouldn’t have been that hard to show something more accurate. The universe pops into existence as a big bright red cloud that fills the whole screen. “We can’t show you the edge because the universe doesn’t have an edge … the hot cloud filled the entire universe.” You highlight a few particles in the cloud and show them spreading farther apart as the cloud gets thinner and cools from orange to yellow to transparent. But, of course, it’s not as exciting as an explosion. Pow! Boom! Yay, science! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/131 "2014-03-12T20:47:15Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > Sheesh! **You** just don’t get it, do you? Did you even _read_ my post with any care before responding? Didn’t you notice anything I wrote about Bruno being an ignorant, anti-skeptical, anti-scientific crackpot? Which _should_ have disqualified him from consideration – let alone granting him such a large segment – given that the prime mover of the new _Cosmos_ emphasized that skepticism must be a key part of the program? It is hard to be anti-scientific before there is science. The show made it pretty clear that his ideas were based on religion, not science or even reason. And they also made it clear that he was correct by accident. So I fail to see where they held Bruno up as someone to be emulated. They also made it clear that he was kicked out of every place he went, and that he was nuts to return to Italy. Revolutionary science requires two things - the imagination to see things in a different way, and the discipline to work through the idea and provide convincing evidence of it. Bruno had the first but certainly not the second. Most of the audience is not going to have the second, but anyone can have the first. Especially since the Church dogma at the time was so limiting. Galileo has been done and done, especially know that we know that much of Galileo’s troubles were of his own making, for instance by putting the accepted dogma in the mouth of a simpleton in his book. It also is a nice lesson about looking at the ideas, not the person. That Bruno was a crackpot didn’t make his ideas wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/132 "2014-03-12T20:49:41Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > It wouldn’t have been that hard to show something more accurate. The universe pops into existence as a big bright red cloud that fills the whole screen. “We can’t show you the edge because the universe doesn’t have an edge … the hot cloud filled the entire universe.” You highlight a few particles in the cloud and show them spreading farther apart as the cloud gets thinner and cools from orange to yellow to transparent. > > But, of course, it’s not as exciting as an explosion. Pow! Boom! Yay, science! But that was during the opaque phase - no red, light didn’t make it far enough to show anything. Cosmos at least showed it was black before cooling made the universe not too dense for light to penetrate anything. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/133 "2014-03-12T21:02:45Z")
> [@Frank Merton](#): > > Depending on dictionary definitions to defend things misleading people will not do. Good thing I didn’t do that. I brought up the dictionary definition of “explosion” to prove that the Big Bang really was an explosion, not to defend misleading people. Calling it “inflation” (or “expansion”) doesn’t help. Both of those terms are just as capable of leading to misunderstanding. There are not any more clear or accurate than “explosion”. So, either the host needs to go into detail about how something was an explosion, but not a normal sort of explosion (or an inflation, but not a normal sort of inflation, etc.), or they stick with the simple version. It’s best to do the first; that way is more precise. But neither is inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/134 "2014-03-12T21:02:54Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > But that was during the opaque phase - no red, light didn’t make it far enough to show anything. Cosmos at least showed it was black before cooling made the universe not too dense for light to penetrate anything. It’s colored red to show that it’s HOT. You can explain if you need to: “We colored it red to show how HOT it was! If you’d actually been there you couldn’t have seen ANYTHING! The hot fog was too thick!” It’s been my experience that the explosion metaphor actually gets in the way of convincing people that the Big Bang happened. I’ve seen creationists on this very board try to argue against the Big Bang based on misconceptions arising from the explosion metaphor such as: “What was the explosion exploding into?” ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/135 "2014-03-12T21:06:53Z")
“What was it inflating into?” “What was it expanding into?” “What was it increasing into?” “What was it growing into?” There’s nothing special about the word “explosion” (or “inflation”, or “expansion”, or “growth”) that makes creationists disbelieve. They will be happy to disbelieve regardless of a single word choice. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/136 "2014-03-12T21:08:22Z")
[QUOTE=The Hamster King] It’s been my experience that the explosion metaphor actually gets in the way of convincing people that the Big Bang happened. I’ve seen creationists on this very board try to argue against the Big Bang based on misconceptions arising from the explosion metaphor such as: “What was the explosion exploding into?” [/QUOTE] I love it when creationists fall back on science. Win. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/137 "2014-03-12T21:09:43Z")
> [@BlackKnight](#): > > “What was it inflating into?” > > “What was it expanding into?” > > “What was it increasing into?” > > “What was it growing into?” > > There’s nothing special about the word “explosion” (or “inflation”, or “expansion”, or “growth”) that makes creationists disbelieve. They will be happy to disbelieve regardless of a single word choice. It was expanding into Win. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/138 "2014-03-12T22:05:09Z")
> [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > It was expanding into Win. [Captain, I’m detecting large quantities of WIN in this sector.](http://cheezburger.com/1768237824) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/139 "2014-03-12T22:36:03Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > . . . But, of course, it’s not as exciting as an explosion. Pow! Boom! Yay, science! You’re forgetting the sunglasses - and the walk. It’s the three together that look so cool ---
**Author:** ![Athabasca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Athabasca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athabasca)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324/140 "2014-03-13T01:24:36Z")
With respect, what is this thread doing in BBQ Pit? Isn’t Cafe Society the place for TV shows? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cosmos-a-waste-of-spacetime/683324.md?page=8)