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Cosmos Episode 3: The Harmony of the Worlds

Here comes Professor Sagan, the Great Astronomy Teacher!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was great to see Sagan launch into astrology with the elegance that only he is capable of. He pretty much demolished astrology in about five eloquent minutes. He pointed out the many incongruities and inconsistencies in the logic of astrology. Of course, the apologists for astrology will find counter-arguments to his arguments but that's a futile exercise.

Sagan enriched my knowledge of history as usual as he talked about how the size of the Earth was first calculated by the director of the Library of Alexandria ... or, perhaps he did that in another episode of Cosmos.

Sagan talked about the Anasazi people of Southwest America who had built a place where the Sun shone at a particular place on only the Solar Solstice.

Sagan went into European history and how Johannes Kepler's orbit intersected with that of Tycho Brahe. Seeing Sagan explain Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, I was reminded of my own days of undergraduate Physics. Clearly, Sagan's way of explaining it was far more interesting than the usual humdrum teacher's way of explaining it.

Oh, how one wishes one had a teacher like Sagan. But then, perhaps even that would not necessarily inspire all the students in class as students at that age tend to have different inspirations and focuses.

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