Time for Good Works

He has made everything beautiful in its time. 

Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, 

yet so that he cannot find out what God has done 

from the beginning to the end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

I am not a sci-fi enthusiast, but I do follow all things Neil deGrasse Tyson. When I heard that my favorite astrophysicist, who has a comedic way of making science cool, was launching  new late night talk show on National Geographic TV, I knew I had to tune in. I missed the inaugural broadcast last week (mommy duty at an away track meet), but I did catch this week's episode of Star Talk.

The premise and tagline for Star Talk is "where science and pop culture collide." Tyson shot this episode at the American Museum of Natural History. His co-host is comedian Eugene Mirman, who expressed an affinity for science fiction, Star Trek, and time travel. Rounding out this week's panel of experts was Janna Levin, an astrophysicist who studied black holes, the science know as cosmology. The pop culture assignment of the week: sharing director Christopher Nolan's backstory behind the movie Interstellar.  

First, let me say that Ms. Levin became my shero when she gave the same advice that I use about solving complex equations and problems: Follow the chalk! In other words, do the math. Understanding of the concept comes from repetition. 

Back to Interstellar: Nolan wanted to do a movie to illustrate that scientists are people too. He wanted to shape a story, not from beginning to end, that detailed the complex layers of time. This allowed the panelists to have a discussion on relativity, Einstein's introduction to the dimensions of time. Time ticks at different rates. Using the example that when you get close to a black hole, time moves so slowly that one hour of travel is equal to twenty years of life. The scientists in Interstellar journey through a wormhole. How could the ability to visit your past potentially influence your future? 

So some cool things that I learned, or remembered, from watching this episode of Star Talk:

• Hydrogen is the only element that appears on the left side of the Periodic Table but has the ability to act as both a gas and a metal under certain conditions.
• Wormholes are three dimensional functions of time, space, and energy/matter. 
• Wormholes are formed through unstable conditions. There is nothing to keep the throat of a wormhole open. 
• An event horizon is the region around a black hole where gravitational forces are so strong nothing will ever come out. It is a place, not a thing.

Yes, my inner-geek was satisfied and I enjoyed this episode of Star Talk. I appreciate Tyson's purposed work in making science appeal to everyone, that it is not all rocket science. If you get a chance, I encourage you to watch the re-broadcast the next time it airs. Quality shows like this must be supported. How can we engage more young futurists to consider the importance of time in the collision of science, technology, and humanities in discovering their purposed work? Feel free to comment, or send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post, and want to  catch up on some of my previous discussion, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com.