A review on Neil deGrasse Tyson’s A Cosmic Perspective

On a very chilly Saturday (15 th of July, 2017) in Melbourne, Australia, we were lucky

enough to host Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson- the very famed Astrophysicist, at the Melbourne

Exhibition Centre. Even though my dad and I sat on the balcony seat, with Dr. Tyson being

no bigger than an ant from our view, his stage presence was highly awe-inspiring. I loved

how with such serious discussions on scientific topics, he was able to provide comic relief

throughout the whole time he was there.

As promised by the title of his talk, he provided a ‘cosmic perspective’ of our place in

the universe. Without revealing too much, he believes that we are a part of the universe

and “not separate” from it. Dr. Tyson provided a contemporary view on the field of

astrophysics and mathematics, with references to Artificial Intelligence and the theory of a

Simulated Universe. For a scientist like me, this was the talk to attend. However, since Dr.

Tyson provided such clear explanations to everything he spoke about, individuals do not

require a massive scientific background to understand what he is talking about.

My favourite part of his talk, without revealing too much, was at the beginning

where he just blew all of our minds when it comes to the sheer vastness of the universe. He

used numbers to illustrate just how big the universe is and how insignificant we are.

Another thing that I found fascinating was his view on the word “Intelligence”. He believes

that the word, with respect to humans, is too egotistical, for the lack of a better word. The

example he used to illustrate this was our closest relative- the chimpanzees. A fully grown

chimp has the intelligence of a human toddler. However, who defined intelligence? Humans

did, and we believe that we need to look for people with our intelligence in the universe.

But what if we have the intelligence capacity of an alien toddler? We can never know. The

moral is that we cannot be defined as the most intelligent species that is out there in the

universe (so far) if we do not have any other means of intelligence. Dr. Tyson jokingly states

that this is probably the reason why that we haven’t found other higher life-forms, because

they probably think that we are too dumb.

Overall, I believe that everyone should listen to Dr. Tyson speak, as he provides such

insight into the world’s issues today such as Global Warming and Interstellar Travel.