Comments on: Bad Universe on Discovery Canada tonight!

By: Gary Warburton

Gary Warburton — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:26:35 +0000

What do you say to those of us who call a Kilometer a Click?
We also call the temperature Celsius after the inventor like the Europeans not centigrade. You get used to the temperature if you remember that 10C is
50F, 20C is room temperature, 30C is a hot day and 40C is an extremely hot day over 100F and 50C is the temperature that it got to in India when people were dying.
Nice to hear from you Phil, Keep up the good work.
I`d like to see you do a review of Reaction Engines` Skylon. Things are progressing nicely there. ESA is going to be giving their assessment of it to the UK Space Agency. So far they are quite impressed.

By: Arundo Donax

Arundo Donax — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 01:08:31 +0000

Loved the show, eh. But why Sydney instead of, say, South Bend, Columbus, Iowa City or Happy Valley, or wherever it is those Nittany Lions live, eh?

One very minor micro-quibble: Our Canucklehead PVR guide up here said that the show focused on debunking pop-culture pseudo-scientific “facts”. And that you were going to prove that “most of what we know about (aboot) the Universe is wrong.” Instead, the program focused on how we’re all going to die (crikey!!) unless we use one of several methods to change the orbits of those nasty NEOs.

Still, that was one great show. Loved the cannon and the explosions!! METRIC RULES!!

“Holy Haleakala”?? Might I suggest “Holy Mauna Kea” for your next show

I’m looking forward to the show aboot aliens!!

By: Taiga

Taiga — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:38:20 +0000

I really enjoyed it but I have two questions that weren’t answered. One, what is the possibility of an asteroid/comet hitting in a defined time span, like per year? Yes we know the chance of it happening between now and forever is 100%, but how likely is it to happen within a person’s lifetime? Two, you seemed to assume that a missile’s aim would be 100% accurate and that’s just not true. The military has been trying to perfect the technique of knocking missiles out of the sky and the last I heard their accuracy rate was 50%, and that’s when the target has a homing beacon on it. If we shot a missile or what have you at an asteroid, what are the chances we’d hit it?

By: Evan Bentz

Evan Bentz — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 22:06:26 +0000

I’ve PVR’d (or DVR’d) the show and have watched the first little bit. Was it produced in HD? Unless I missed it, it was only being broadcast in Canada in standard definition, and thus I almost missed it. The HD channel had recently been showing the other show with Phil Plait in it (with great HD representations of naked black holes roaming around etc.).

By: Rob G.

Rob G. — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:58:52 +0000

Holy Haleakala! The show was very well done and informative. Holy Haleakala! I especially appreciated how Dr. Plait’s enthusiasm and humor came through. Holy Haleakala! The explosion used to simulate the impact and resulting crater from an asteroid was incredible. Holy Haleakala! I can only imagine what it must have been like to be there when it went off. Holy Haleakala! If I had one complaint it would be that there wasn’t a shot of the entire crater and ejecta from directly above. Holy Haleakala! I think it would have been interesting to see it from an angle that would have been similar to what we see when we look at craters on the moon. Holy Haleakala! All in all a really good episode and I look forward to the next in the series.

Holy Haleakala! I almost forgot. Holy Haleakala! There was one thing I found really annoying about the “script” but I can’t seem to remember what it was. Holy Haleakala! I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually. Holy Haleakala!

By: Chris S

Chris S — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 18:48:27 +0000

Re: upcoming repeats on Dicovery Canada... Bad Universe - Asteroid Apocalypse Phil Plait investigates the possibility that an asteroid like
the one that wiped out the dinosaurs may strike again. (all times are Eastern Time)

Thu 10/7   9:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Fri 10/8   1:00 AM -  2:00 AM
Fri 10/8   4:00 PM -  5:00 PM
Sun 10/10 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Mon 10/11  7:00 PM -  8:00 PM
Mon 10/11 11:00 PM - 12:00 AM

By: drow

drow — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:24:40 +0000

Holy Haleakala!

By: Fytr

Fytr — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:38:40 +0000

Phil,

Kids and I really enjoyed the show, although I think my 5 year may have developed some angst regarding the possibility of sudden and violent death from the skies…

So yeah, thanks for that!

By: uncle duke

uncle duke — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:33:10 +0000

Caught the show last night, well done! Blowing things up AND outer space stuff. And frankly, the Australians had it coming, although I notice Paris and some other major cities got flattened too. Can’t wait to see what the next episode is a-boot.

By: Antonio

Antonio — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:12:32 +0000

Great!

Please advise when it comes to Mexico. I understand it requires more time for the translation process but, you know, my 10 year old son is very interested in that.

Congrats!

By: RobT

RobT — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:01:31 +0000

Hey Phil, that’s great I’ll be sure to watch (on PVR). But I watched your kilometer video. Since we actually use the system don’t tell us how to pronounce the word. Just like we don’t tell you how to spell “colour” or “neighbour”, since you don’t pronounce them as you spell them – Col-OR? Neighb-OR? And don’t even get me started on Zed. Zee? Really? Just so it can rhyme with the ABC song?

I suggest you try and find the Bob and Doug MacKenzie skit where they go into the metric system. Among others, they convert 2 pounds of back bacon into kilos. So you double it and add 30, so you have 34 KILOS of back bacon.

By: Boomer

Boomer — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:52:49 +0000

Great show Phil, I loved it. If you like Canada so much, you should move here! (Seriously!)

By: Kevin D

Kevin D — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:47:08 +0000

Fan-damn-tastic show. Phil, you have that Adam Savage enthusiastically knowledgeable and eager to share kind of quality. You make an excellent host.

How many episodes are there, and when are they on Discovery next? I saw your tweet which indicated they might not all be?

By: Winston

Winston — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:10:19 +0000

Holy Haleakala – that was fun. Can’t wait for the next episode.

What do you have against Sydney? Is it the Wiggles?

By: Michell

Michell — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:26:50 +0000

Been doing my homework down here in Venezuela, already contacted Discovery Latin America about your show sending links to your videos and stuff like that. Fingers crossed.

By: Liisa

Liisa — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 10:19:19 +0000

Very nice. My dog’s favourite part was the air raid siren before the “nuclear” tests. (Also, it did NOT interfere with Dexter) I will go right now and send a note to Discovery. Looking forward to more!

By: Stubby

Stubby — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 04:18:01 +0000

Very cool Phil. Why Sydney ? My 6 year old was very impressed. She said ooh, Mythbusters in space

Has episode 2 aired in the US yet ?

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 03:58:27 +0000

john harmsworth (#24): No, I manually deleted your comment because you were violating my commenting policy. I don't mind negative criticism, just don't be a jerk about it.

By: Fred Nurke

Fred Nurke — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 03:50:35 +0000

Holy Haleakala! Loved it eh?

By: john harmsworth

john harmsworth — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 03:07:55 +0000

Apparently they refused my first post wherein I criticized the program, Phil Plait and Discovery channel for showing this program wherein Mr. Plait uses a blast to simulate a projectile impact and a projectile to simulate a nuclear blast. Pretty poor.

By: Davidlpf

Davidlpf — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:59:25 +0000

It was really good maybe you should write book.

By: Alareth

Alareth — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:47:50 +0000

What? They didn’t dub the show into Canuck?

“Holy Hoser!”

By: Mary

Mary — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:45:31 +0000

Great show. I really enjoyed it. I have emailed Discovery Channel thaking them for airing it.

By: Angie

Angie — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:08:43 +0000

Excellent show, my hubby and I will be watching again.

By: Infophile

Infophile — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:07:15 +0000

And it’s just finished! Thanks again to all who wrote in to Discovery Canada, Discovery Canada itself, and of course Phil for bringing this to us. It was indeed quite entertaining.

But of course, there’s always room for more questions. For all I know, you had answers to these which were cut for time, but I am still curious, in case anyone has answers to these:

-How useful are nukes at changing the trajectory of an asteroid? Would the kinetic impactor still have them beat?

-For that matter, how well would nukes work at creating a jet on a comet to change its trajectory?

-How likely is it for an asteroid to come out of our blind spot, from near the sun?

-You’re trying to make “Holy Haleakala” your catchphrase, aren’t you?