After watching a program about astronomy these days, I usually write a prose-poetic piece which I post here for the possible pleasure of readers.-Ron
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Wonders of the Universe is a 2011 television series produced by the BBC and hosted by physicist Brian Cox.
Wonders of the Universe was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC2 on 6 March 2011 and in Australia on ABC1 on 19 July.(1)
The series comprises four episodes, each of which focuses on an aspect of the universe and features a 'wonder' relevant to the theme. It follows on from Cox's previous series for the BBC,
Wonders of the Solar System, which was first broadcast in 2010.
Wikipedia informs me that in the UK 6 million watched the first episode. Cox and the BBC are also reportedly responsible for a hike in telescope sales. But, as night follows day or, as a planetary nebula becomes a white dwarf, Cox and the program have its detractors. I’ll let you read about them for they are easily accessible in cyberspace.
The universe is filled with over a hundred billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. In the first episode, the one I watched yesterday evening in the middle of an Australian winter, Cox considered the nature of time in this vastness of billions and billions. He explored, briefly, the cycles of time that astronomers and physicists have now named and described. Cox also discussed the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, its effect on time, and the Heat Death theory concerning the end of the universe. I’ll leave you to google all this to your heart’s content if, indeed, your heart and mind want to get more content, more stimulated or more amazed beyond human understanding.(1)-Ron Price with thanks to (1)
ABC1, 19 July 2011, 8:30-9:30 p.m.
We all react to different aspects of programs,
and that is only saying the obvious, eh, Brian?
I was most impressed by the idea of time’s line:
the cosmological terms and those many epochs
beginning with the Planck epoch, the stages of
the early universe, and of structure formation:
stars, galaxies, clusters, super-clusters and the
ultimate fate of the universe in billions of years.(1)
What went on in the first trillionth of a second in
that growth from sub-microscopic to astronomical
size in the blink of an eye? I’ve had a fascination(2)
with time since the ‘50s and those first years of the
atomic age when the edge of self-destruction filled
our time and I joined a new religion with its cycles &
periods, eras & epochs, phases & stages, and plans.(3)
1 Go to this link for the details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang
2 See this link:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...pagewanted=all
3 The Baha’i Faith
Ron Price
19 July 2011
cue Liz and Suzy 
)
