Somnium or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Astronomy

Welcome back!

So what are you watching?

For me, I'm watching the staples; Fringe, Dollhouse, The Big Bang Theory... is there anything else? I cant think of anything off the top of my head but I must be...oh! Supernatural! Thats the other one! So, those are my big four I guess. Others of course but those are the ones I try not to miss.

I was watching Defying Gravity but only just barely. Its a great... well, its a nice idea. At least its something different just not enough... action? Maybe? The characters were all a bit to blah for there to be so little action and the big mystery just wasn't mysterious enough. Wasn't completely turned off by it though and if it gets picked up, Ill watch it again. I should say that I missed several episodes, catching up on story through the top o' the episode recap, so it could be that not having to slog through whole eps made it easier for me to stick with the series.

Heroes got off to a decent start though I know a lot of people are already kicking it around. I thought it was OK. I liked the idea of the carnies and ANYTHING Ray Park touches is gold so...there you go. I should say that I tend to be a little forgiving of my genre shows; if you can get me through the first couple of episodes Ill try and take in the series. But you've got to get me through those first couple. Eureka lost me midways through the second ep and I didn't pick back up again until the beginning of the 09 season. I didn't think it was bad just nothing interesting enough to hook me. They've really developed the characters though. Story content is about the same as far as basic plot devices go but the interaction between the characters is so much more interesting than it was at the jump. Relationships have been really thoroughly fleshed out and its just become very interesting and entertaining to watch.

Supernatural is another one I bailed on then came back to. I was totally bored with the first two eps. Not a huge horror fan so I dropped it quick and didn't look back. Last year however it was Halloween and Smallville, which I watch with my wife, was over and Supernatural was starting and I thought "You know what? This show continues to hang on so let me give it another shot. If a show like this cant sit me down for a Halloween ep, well, I know I made the right choice." I was blown away. One of the best hours or TV programming I have sit through in a while. The feel of the show, the atmosphere, the banter between all of the cast, the performances, all dead on. Been watching ever since. I occasionally wish that I could go back to the beginning, maybe pick it up on DVD, but then I think that maybe missing all the growing pains was a good thing.

Flash Gordon is good example of not hooking me. I should have loved this show, wanted to love this show but I dropped that turkey 15 minutes into the first ep. It was truly awful, horrendous even, and I just dont have time to slog through and try and find entertainment in an hour of truly bad programming.

You know who's doing it right? Well, besides Supernatural I think shows like Castle and The Closer, Burn Notice, Psych and The Mentalist are tearing it up in the character development and interaction arena. Great performances, crisp dialog and entertaining to boot! Thats it. Thats all you need. For me Dollhouse is scooting along on dialog and character alone though the story is starting to shape up. Fringe... Fringe is hard for me to put my finger on. Solid performances, good dialog though not great (by this I mean not crisp and wry and witty like you might find in a Whedon show,Pacey's banter aside)... I think the mythology is difficult for me. I am not a hard science guy and I know that concept is a tricky trail to walk in entertainment but it took me forever to get past all the... hokum, for lack of a better term. It really was the strength of the performances that have kept me coming back to this series.

At this point I know some of you are screaming "WHAT ABOUT DR WHO??!!!" I have a long history with the good Dr. Goes all the way back to the 80's when, as most of my American readers will know, Dr Who was run on PBS over here. I, well, I fell in love. I even had a crush (and still do!) on Sara Jane. I had never seen anything like this. The effects were behind the times to say the least, shows like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers were smokin em in that catergory. But there was something else; something different. Heres how ridiculous I was about it, besides buying and cutting out and collecting EVERYTHING I could find that was Dr Who related I had a string. A simple piece of classic white kite string about 3.5 feet long that I wore around my neck and it was my Dr Who scarf. Oh yes I did. And I would wear it everywhere. To cut to the core when Tom Baker was finally done with his run and his Dr was standing on that dish my hands and forehead were literally sweating and when the Dr fell to his "death" I cried. No joke, no lie, no exaggeration, I freaking cried. Couldnt stop it. I still get a weird feeling in my belly when I think about it. Peter Davison is a wonderful actor and he did a brilliant job as the Dr. And I just couldn't watch it. My Dr was dead. Didnt he know that? So, to say that I had guarded expectations and mixed feelings about this new version is understating things a bit. I wanted desperately for the Dr to be introduced to a new generation but would it be my Dr? Alas the answer was no. Great performances, occasionally fantastic dialog, just not my Dr. Oh, I'll watch it and enjoy it but it has never made it back into my top choices.

So, what are you watching? What have I forgotten or missed out on? What are your favorites and how have I butchered my understanding of the things I watch? Let me know! Vote! Email! Comment! Whatever!

Ok, down to business!
Well, today is a Tuesday and Tuesdays are dedicated to Books and Authors so how about we take it way back! All the way to the 1600's!

Somnium

Written between 1600 and 1630 by Johannes Kepler. Edited and published posthumously in 1634.

Somnium is considered by some to be the first example of science fiction in literature, a position supported by both Carl Sagan and Issac Asimov, and the first real scientific treatise on lunar astronomy. Originally written by Johannes Kepler, a noted mathematician and astronomer, as a student in 1593, the manuscript was circulated by Kepler to describe what practicing astronomy would be like from the perspective of another planet, to show the feasibility of a non-geocentric system i.e. a system in which the Earth circled around the Sun.

Told from the perspective of the author relating a dream Somnium concerns the adventures of Duracotus, a native of Iceland whose father has died and whose mother sells bags of herbs to sailors to support the family. The bags also contained luck charms and healing aids needed by the sailors on their long and dangerous trips across the North Atlantic. Out of curiosity Duracotus opens one of the bags intended for a particular captain, spilling its contents and angering his mother. As punishment she sold Duracotus to the captain instead.
Duracotus took ill on his first voyage so the captain put him ashore in Denmark in the care of Tycho Brahe, a real 16th century astronomer, who took the boy in as a student. After some years he took leave of Brahe and set off for home. His mother was overjoyed at seeing her son and hearing of his education told him that she too knew of the stars through her connection with the Daemon of Lavania, the spirit of the moon. She then offered to take Duracotus to the Deamon for a tour of the moon.

The force of the take-off for the moon hits the two as a severe shock, “for he is hurled just as though he had been shot aloft by gunpowder to sail over mountains and seas.” In order to counteract what Isaac Newton would later define as the force of gravity, the moon voyagers are put to sleep with the aid of opiates and their limbs are arranged in such a way that their bodies will not be torn apart by the force of acceleration. We are told that the flight of four hours is “most difficult and fraught with the greatest danger to life.” Within a short time the speed of flight becomes so great that the body involuntarily rolls itself up into a ball like an endangered spider, “we are carried along almost entirely by our will alone, so that finally the bodily mass proceeds toward its destination of its own accord:” With this Kepler had introduced the concept of “inertia” to the physical sciences and had extended its operation into the heavens. Kepler went on to expound upon extraterrestrial biology describing entirely new and different species that inhabited the moon and the dangers of unprotected exposure to the sun on the lunar landscape.

Kepler anticipates another major obstacle to the moon voyager when he observes that we agreed not to begin “until the moon begins to be eclipsed on its eastern side. Should it regain its full light while we are still in transit, our departure becomes futile.” Implying that Kepler knew that once outside the protective blanket provided by the earth’s atmosphere, humans could not survive the resulting solar bombardment.

Kepler goes on from there to further illuminate the physics of the voyage and life on the moon. As a scientific treatise his work on Somnium is startlingly accurate as he builds on Copernican astronomy to create his fiction.

As a work of fiction Somnium is in many ways standard 16th century fare but it is Kepler’s unique use of physics and astronomy that makes this piece stand out both as science and science fiction.

Ironically Kepler’s mother was imprisoned in 1620 on a charge of witchcraft. Kepler fought strenuously against the charges at the risk of losing his good standing and reputation in the community. The charges were eventually dropped.

Podcast:

A short time ago I discovered Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. In Hardcore History the very unconventional Dan Carlin takes what appears to be his signature outside-the-box way of thinking and applies it to the past. Was Alexander the Great as bad a person as Adolf Hitler? What would Apaches with modern weapons be like? Will our modern civilization ever fall like civilizations from past eras?

This is a difficult-to-classify show that has a rather sharp edge. Carlin will be the first to tell you that he is not a "student" of history, just a fan. But his innovative style and approach is more than mildly addicting. He is more telling the exciting story of history then reciting the facts. His presentation is energetic and excited and you can very much hear in his voice how absolutely fascinated he is by his subject, be it the near prehistoric Steppe peoples of Asia or the all but gone from history Assyrians all the way up to the fierce Apaches who terrorized the southwestern United States until the early 1900's to the bizarre fascination with the Nazi party.

This is a truly engrossing and entertaining podcast that will leave you wanting more after each episode. Dan covers his subjects in depth, going down as deeply as he can into the information and working his way out. Each episode presents itself like a mini movie, Dan's unbridled zest for the subject and the use of subtle sound effects in the background creating a rich tapestry of images of far off places and long dead peoples, mad men and dictators and entire cultures who literally bathed in the blood of their victims; empires that were won and lost on the backs of individuals and ancient, alien societies that looked vaguely like our own. I find myself at the end of each episode wanting to go out and learn as much as I can about each enthralling subject. Were I a teacher this would be a must listen for my history class as nothing has lit a fire in me to learn more than Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. Try it HERE I guarentee you wont be dissatisfied!

And thus ends another installment of Scifi:365. Hope you enjoyed it!

I do so relish these times of peril! (You will get MAD bonus points with me if you get that reference!)

Edward.