Posts Tagged: ‘Cosmos’
The 1977 short “Powers of Ten” continues to stand out as just one of the coolest educational films of all time. While our understanding of the micro and macro worlds has improved a little since it was made, the overall message about size and scope of our universe continues to stand the test of time. But don’t take my word for it. You’ll find the full video in this post. If this is your first time viewing “Powers of Ten,” then you’re in for a real mind-blowing treat. Hold onto your cerebral cortex, kids.
I’m a nerd who loves music, which means “A Glorious Dawn,” the video created with pitch-corrected clips from Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” is one of those things on the Internet that seems to have been made just for me. So when I saw that the video had blossomed into a whole project called The Symphony of Science, I jumped at the chance to ask Boswell for an interview. He graciously agreed.
Today would have been Sagan’s 75th birthday — a perfect time take a look at how this project came to be and what’s coming up in the Symphony’s future. If you haven’t seen “A Glorious Dawn” or “We Are All Connected,” I highly recommend them — they’re embedded in this post as well.
It’s been a busy week at HowStuffWorks.com. On top of the normal schedule of podcasting, live shows, blog posts and articles, we’ve also experienced the joy of upgrading the software on our computers. Immediately following that came the traditional 45-minute where-the-heck-did-they-put-copy-and-paste ritual. Then there was a building-wide fire drill that disrupted us for an hour or so. Oh, and there’s the guest appearances.
On Tuesday, Randall Bennett invited me on TechVi to discuss the new line of Apple products that hit stores this week. Yesterday, Chris and I sat down for a phone interview with Chuck from Galactic Watercooler. We talked about Carl Sagan, Cosmos, the Voyager program and science fiction. The episode should be up later this weekend — definitely check it out. They run a fun show and have had some really interesting guests on in the past.
On top of all that, we also published two new episodes of TechStuff! You remember TechStuff — it’s the show with electrolytes (it’s what plants crave). This week, our shows focused on two related topics: touch-screen technology and the Zune personal media player.
Space Music: Carl Sagan – “A Glorious Dawn”
by Robert Lamb | October 19, 2009
In another installment of space music, I have to help spread the word about this marvelous audiovisual creation by John Boswell, AKA melodysheep of Color Pulse Music. What he’s done here is take samples and footage from Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” and Stephen Hawking’s “Universe” and mixed it all into a musical tribute. What might have come off as parody in the hands of a lesser artist really conveys a sense of cosmological awe and wonder.
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