Customer Reviews

Charlie Rose with Robert Kirshner; Paul Volcker & Joe Treaster; Laurie Anderson (May 20, 2004)

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Kirshner is a Harvard astronomer who comes to talk to Charlie Rose about the recent evidence indicating that the Universe is expanding at a more accelerated rate than previously thought- in fact at such an accelerating rate that it will conceivably continue to do so 'forever' or certainly at least to the point where our own galaxy will be no longer able to receive light from, see anywhere else. Kirshner talks about the recent discovery that the Universe consists in about one- third dark matter and two - thirds dark energy. And that only four percent of the Universe is the kind of particles and atoms which physicists think of as constituting the world. Rose hints at asking about the religious and human implications of all this but somehow is deferred by a humorous Kirshner remark. Clearly Kirshner does not want to get into what is not his own business. His coinage , the title of his book, " The Extravagant Universe' sounds to me a bit like astronomical spin. The darkness and the violence, and the sheer inhospitality and non- accessability of the vastest part of the Universe make it seem more to my mind like 'The Unfriendly Universe'. Rose also does not ask about the challenges involved in possibly communicating with other Intelligences should there be any, about the possibility of humans or their 'successors' beginning to escape the sun- doomed earth and colonize nearby planets should we find some which are hospitable.