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Copernicus Tells Us About Tonight's Episode Of KNOWN UNIVERSE!!

Published at:  May 12, 2011 10:00:22 AM CDT

 

Thanks for all the love last week on my article about the premiere of KNOWN UNIVERSE.  I’ve never seen such a positive talkback – it felt like some Bizzaro Universe AICN.   Given that, if I have the time, and as long as I have something to say, I think I’ll try to write an article about what it was like to make each week’s episode.
 
 
LAST WEEK:  Surviving Outer Space
 
First up:  reaction to the last episode.  I’ve spent half a lifetime doing research, and I think I have made some real contributions to our understanding of the universe.   And what gets me into Time?  An article titled:  Everybody Poops:  How Do Astronauts Go to the Bathroom in Space.  Ahh, but I give up complaining.  People love that damn orbital outhouse.  Proof that, yes, we really are just fancy monkeys.
 
As you can tell by Mike’s statement in the episode – I really was not enthusiastic about sitting on the space toilet.  And while I’d like to think my retort, “People are knocking on the door!” was evidence of a devastating wit, it wasn’t – it was actually the truth!  That is a functional bathroom at NASA!  There is an Earth toilet right behind the cameraman.  And the space throne is fully functional – astronauts have to really practice on that thing.  The one I was sitting on – the one with the camera – isn’t functional as far as, um, waste disposal, goes.  It is what they call the positional trainer.  Yes, potty re-training for astronauts.  You train sitting on that one until you know how to position yourself without the camera.  There is no ass camera in space.  
 
The other segment I was in was one comparing my mile time on Earth and on a reduced-gravity treadmill.   There is a fundamental truth that the segment gets right:  it is much easier to work against the moon’s gravity.  But I think it got some of the details wrong – you probably can’t run faster on the real moon.  I wish the editors had left in my caveats about how that test isn’t really fair.  An astrophysicist friend of mine, Todd Henry, who has run 21 marathons, has looked into it.  He’s run out of novel places to do marathons on Earth, having done them on all 7 continents, so now he’s looking into the moon!  For running fast, frequent strides are better than longer ones.  On the moon you’d spend so much time in the air that you’d actually run slower.  And the inflatable-pants treadmill wasn’t a perfect analog for the moon because the tread was just zooming by under my feet while I was floating.  Still, it was fun to do, and it got the point across.  As is so often the case, television isn’t the best medium for nuance.
 
Yes I look particularly out of shape in the Earth-bound segments.  All I can say is – acting!  I wasn’t actually going all out for my best time.  And I really had to run much farther than a mile, because I had to do aspects of it many times while they got close-ups, tracking shots, etc.  And of course they chose shots that made me look slow, like ones shot by a camera man on a cart moving along with me.  Sometimes you have to put your pride aside to serve the narrative if you want to make good TV. Still, I did really run a timed mile (after the preliminary running), and let’s just say that level of acting was in my range – I couldn’t have done much better had I really gone all out.
 
 
THIS WEEK:  Treasure Hunt
 
Treasure on Earth generally consists of rare, valuable things.  But a surprising amount of it is tied to astronomy.  For example, diamonds require the tremendous pressure of the Earth to turn carbon into a crystalline form.  And metal mining can happen in some places, like Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, because a meteor impact long ago melted the surface of the Earth at the impact site, causing liquefied metal to seep into the cracks.  Certain metals are very hard to mine on Earth, but are easy to get to on asteroids – hunks of metals left over from the formation of the solar system.  If we could capture and mine an asteroid, it could result in trillions of dollars of astro-booty.  That’s harder than it looks though, because you could actually run and jump off the surface of most asteroids.  Mining would be quite difficult.
 
But there’s more:  treasure in space also consists of rare, valuable things, but our definition of rare and valuable is different there.  Things like water and fuel become treasures, because you have to take it with you, and every pound you lift into orbit is expensive.   So it is much better to find your water and fuel in space if you can.  
 
 
UNDER PRESSURE
 
To demonstrate how pressure can turn carbon into diamond, I got to do one of my favorite demos of the whole series:  walking on water.  Now I am no deity, so I had to use a trick – physics!  We created a mixture of cornstarch and water, called oobleck (from the Dr. Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck).  This stuff is strange and awesome. It is a liquid under normal conditions, but if you put pressure on it, it becomes a sold.  Now, when most people do this experiment they fill up a small child’s pool with this stuff.  But to hell with that – we ain’t makin’ no YouTube video, we’re making a TV show! So we got a cement mixer, churned up two tons of the stuff, and poured it in a dumpster.  The effects crew even built platforms on either side of the dumpster for me to stand on, had a crane ready to pull me out if anything went wrong, and set up a camera on a jib to capture the spectacle of a post-Newtonian astrophysicist prancing on a non-Newtonian fluid.
 
And it worked!
 
 
 
 
I was even able to dance in place on the stuff.
 
 
 
But to complete the experiment, I had to prove that it really acts like a liquid and stop running, allowing myself to sink.
 
 
 
Let me tell you, taking an oobleck bath is very, very strange.  For one thing, my feet were bent into a strange position beneath me, and this stuff is so thick, I couldn’t rearrange them to balance.  And I was slowly sinking.  This stuff is like quicksand.  We finally did get all the shots we needed, and they got the crane to pull me out.
 
 
 
There was just one problem:  the harder you pull on this stuff, the harder it pulls back on you.  So the crane actually couldn’t pull me out!  Or more accurately, I couldn’t hold on with one force pulling me one way, and another the other way.  So the only way for me to get out was to creep out, inching my way very slowly.  It took about five minutes.  Notice the boom mic, because obviously I couldn’t wear a mic in this stuff.
 
 
 
And here is the finished segment:
 
 
 
 
THE UNIVERSE VS CANADA
 
It is often hard to extract metals from the Earth because they are buried, they sank to the center when the Earth was molten, or because they are not concentrated enough to make mining profitable.  But an asteroid impact 2 billion years ago in Sudbury changed all that.  Now they can mine gold there because the impact melted the Earth, liquefying metal, allowing it to collect in the cracks in the shattered Earth.  To demonstrate this, Mike Massimino and Steve “Jake” Jacobs got to use a powerful air gun to smash a cannonball (the asteroid) into a block of ice (Canada).  Luckily, I was on set that day to film something else, and I got to watch.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Yes, Mike is like some kind of space pirate, holding a cannonball there.  He loaded it into the air cannon (still can’t believe we get to shoot freaking cannons!), and BOOM!
 
 
 
 
These images are spectacular, captured again in stills by Katrina Marcinowski.
 
 
 
I think the above is a frame out of the high speed camera though.  The slow motion footage is awesome.  Here’s the segment:
 
 
So I think the episode turned out well – it mixes crazy demos, astronomy, space exploration, and even centers around the down-to-earth subject of a hunt for treasure.  Incidentally, Harry’s geek sign is Treasure Hunter.  Check it out this Thursday at 9 pm Eastern on the National Geographic Channel.
 
 
 
- Andy Howell  aka Copernicus
Email or follow me on Twitter


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    Readers Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 10:31:51 AM CDT

    :D

    by t 1000 xp professional

    will be watching!

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 10:39:31 AM CDT

    That Oobleck fluid is weirding me out

    by t 1000 xp professional

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 10:58:30 AM CDT

    Oobleck

    by thewhitewilsmith

    They did that on Mythbusters like 3 years ago. Still a cool experiment, though.

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 10:59:54 AM CDT

    Pfft, science.

    by papa lazaru

    What’s science ever done for us?

    TV off.

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 11:13:04 AM CDT

    Wonders of the Universe - Brian Cox

    by masteryoda007

    You Americans need to roll a fat one and stick on some Professor Brain Cox. It will blow your mind.

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 11:27:08 AM CDT

    Didn`t Mythbusters do that cornstarh thing a while ago ?

    by higgledyhiggles

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 11:27:30 AM CDT

    cornstarch even.. damn my speeling!

    by higgledyhiggles

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 11:32:03 AM CDT

    Unbeknownst to the crew, a homeless guy was sleeping in the dumpster and was covered in oobleck...

    by has_snyder_been_fired_from_superman_yet

    ...naturally he became mired in the stuff, inhaling and breathing it in, making him unable to cry out for help. After a few hours of the oobleck seeping into his pores, the uncanny fluid merged with his molecules and he became a shambling caricature of a man, a vengeful, unstoppable, non-Newtonian engine of destruction. Yes, a new Spider-Man villain was born that day, thanks to the careless actions of Copernicus and his crew... the terrifying threat of The Oobleckian! Look out New York, there's a new villain in town. Nuff said!

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 11:34:52 AM CDT

    And for our next Canadian experiment, buddy...

    by has_snyder_been_fired_from_superman_yet

    ...we're going to pull off your arm and insert it up my ass whilst standing in a vat of Oobleck Pudding!

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 11:59:59 AM CDT

    MYTHBUSTERS

    by copernicus

    Indeed, MYTHBUSTERS did the oobleck experiment, but you could get about one or two steps across their container. I don't know if it was the mix or the shape of the container, or both, but ours seemed to behave quite differently -- it seemed to be more liquid.

    And has_snyder_been_fired_from_superman_yet, I lived in Toronto for 5 years. Once you experience enough -25C days you earn the right to give Canadia a hard time :)

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 12:04:17 PM CDT

    SCIENCE IS ALREADY THE BOMB, BUT WHAT ANDY DID WAS GRAVY

    by bsb

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 12:06:12 PM CDT

    copernicus & higgledyhiggles

    by s0l

    Us brits did it in style long before mythbusters..
    ^_~

    We used a swimming pool and filled it with custard...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN2D5y-AxIY

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 12:08:44 PM CDT

    Where's your black box, Copernicus?

    by the_choppah

    Harold needs to get on that STAT!

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 12:22:41 PM CDT

    Copernicus missed the South Park reference, but that's okay...

    by has_snyder_been_fired_from_superman_yet

    ...the oobleck thing looks cool anyway. And of course, props for doing a show about actual science and not UFOs, ghosts, bigfeet, Bible Codes or whatever the hell the Hillbilly Channel is running at the moment.

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 12:27:16 PM CDT

    One more thing "Coper"...

    by has_snyder_been_fired_from_superman_yet

    ...Dammit, have Harry give you a black talkback panel, everyone else on the Giant Ginger's merry crew has 'em and they don't even have their own shows. WTF is up with that? Anti-Canadianism, maybe?

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 12:44:43 PM CDT

    Just can't Copernicus Seriously.

    by tailhook

    No black box. Sorry pal. Just a puddknocker until you get one of those. I say if you got your own show, you get a black box.

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 12:54:59 PM CDT

    Cool beans...

    by veritasses

    Love this stuff.

    Now, why don't they make science class this interesting so the kids pay attention and retain something for once?

    As an experiment, they should have NG create an entire semester's worth of programming for a particular subject and see how well kids do on standardized tests. Of course that'll never happen but it would be interesting to see.

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 12, 2011 1:22:01 PM CDT

    HAROLD -- BLACK BOX COPERNICUS!

    by the_choppah

    The seething hordes of Chaos have spoken!

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 13, 2011 4:54:07 AM CDT

    BY POPULAR DEMAND.

    by tailhook

    Copernicus has now been given his Black Hole. WTG pal.

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 13, 2011 6:56:57 AM CDT

    fascinating

    by floristgump

    ...I sound like Spock. that was brilliant, could watch stuff like that all day!

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 13, 2011 4:12:24 PM CDT

    Cool stuff. I want to show my whole fam.

    by sweeneydave

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 16, 2011 7:29:32 AM CDT

    I tried to watch...I *really* did try....

    by damned if i can login

    The content of the series is right up my alley.

    It's the editing. Unfortunately this series has fallen prey to a recent phenomenon in TV. There's here's so much extreme camera motion and snap editing I can't watch for more than a few minutes without getting dizzy.

    Don't the people who do this stuff realize that there are a *lot* of viewers out there who physically cannot tolerate this kind of editing??? Obviously not.

    I mean, this kind of editing may seem cool or whatever but in truth you're chasing away potential viewers. And trust me on this one, the audience who watches these kind of shows will not complain one bit if the extreme camera motion is toned down. On the contrary they'd probably cheer.

    Copernicus...think you could mention that to someone on the set? More viewers = higher ratings, y'know....

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 16, 2011 7:28:20 PM CDT

    editing

    by copernicus

    damned.... I agree. I complain about the camera motion and fast editing all the time. Alas, it is out of my control.

    Reply to Talkback

  • May 17, 2011 10:59:50 AM CDT

    Thanks man...

    by damned if i can login

    Yeah, I kinda figured it was a long shot...but what the heck, doesn't hurt to ask.

    I wish I knew why this type of editing seems to be all the rage. It's odd that I *never* hear anyone say they love it, in fact it's the opposite. I see lotsa feedback from viewers saying that it's unsettling, but never anyone saying "I love this jerky camera motion and all the warp-speed zooming."

    So why is it so prevalent??? Because it's "kewl"....? Argh. Oh well....guess I'll tune into some Wagon Train...

    Reply to Talkback

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