The Washington Post has a nice interview with Neil Tyson, who is an astronomer and head of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. It’s nice to see a newspaper paying attention the people behind the science.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
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December 18th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Ah, thank you! Reading “Death By Black Hole” right now. I’m a huge fan of Tyson.
December 18th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Yay, love Neil. But really, he hasn’t been “behind” the science for quite some time. I think he’s one of the very best science communicators out there (present company excluded!).
December 18th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Great interview.
It’s unfortunate that I’ve only heard of Neil Tyson within the last year! If I had heard of him in around 1997-ish, I would probably be a professional astronomer/astrophysicist today! He has that sort of enthusiasm which is highly contagious when he speaks, and I had been infected during the second year of my astrophysics degree, I probably wouldn’t have got bored with it!
I’m glad I completed my degree, but looking back now, I really wish I had done better and carried on with it.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Yep, I -DEVOURED- the article last Sunday when it came out.
You & he are the current holders of the title “Astronomy Popularizer” which was so ably held for so long by Dr. Sagan.
Soooooo….
When is -YOUR- article coming out? Maybe a book tour?
Rich
December 18th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Tyson is great. He thinks clearly and speaks very well. He has a talent for getting sound bytes out that are picked up by the popular media. That gets folks to start being curious. See him on this video from Beyond Belief.
http://thesciencenetwork.org/BeyondBelief/
I would like to see more people that can think & speak. The media is a hard nut to crack.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Ahh, the unofficial astronomer of The Colbert Report!
December 18th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Great interview, thanks for the link!
December 18th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Titanic!
I will definitely buy one of his books as a Christmas present for myself.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:00 am
Actually I first heard of Neil Tyson on the Colbert Report. Then, I’m embarrassed to admit this, I saw him on Glenn Beck’s propaganda show on CNN. I was very impressed with his enthusiasm and wit and charm. I will definitely buy his books!
December 19th, 2007 at 4:29 am
I only read part of his book “Death by Black Hole” from a library.
I sorely wish to own it now!
Along with his appearences on science TV programs, he strikes me as one of the coolest science guys I know.
Don’t worry Phil, you’re included too!
December 19th, 2007 at 7:48 am
He went to my High School.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:58 am
To Grand Lunar: Wouldn’t it be really cool though if the BA was on the Colbert Report?
December 20th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Hmm … The bloke who helped kill off Pluto’s full status as a planet.
He sure got that _WRONG_.
Can’t say I’m a fan.
… Or that I’ve read any of his work or seen much of him except knocking Pluto on a doco of that.
I’d put Phil Plait, James B. Kaler and others wa-aay ahead of him. For my money Isaac Asiomov was the best Science populariser with Carl Sagan a close second.
December 20th, 2007 at 8:18 am
D’oh *&*(&^%@@@@!!!#@! typos.
Isaac Asimov is who I meant of course!
December 20th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I also “discovered” Neil Tyson in Beyond Belief 2006 videos, last year. He was charismatic, but his views on science communication (and the question he did to Dawkins) really got me.
I was dissapointed when checked that he wasn’t panelist at Beyond Belief 2007, so I spent this weeken surfing on his personal web site. There are tons of videos and audio. He was recently interviewed by Point of Inquiry (podcast). Tyson was also the host of PBS’s Origins series, and a full chapter of it is available online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/program-3114.html (is it me the only one who thinks this is a great homeage to Cosmos?)
May 5th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
GO MY DAD!!! I’m happy everybody loves hiz work. And for the person who thinks pluto should be a planet.
It shouldn’t. That’s like calling a comet a planet. Pluto is a comet.
AND A BIIIIIIIIIIG NOTE TO EVERYONE!!! DONATE 2 A SPACE FUND!!! IT ONLY GETS 0.6% OF THE TAX U PEOPLES PAY AND IF U LOVE SPACE, U’D WANT TO DONATE!!!!