science

Standing Up in the Milky Way

Standing Up in the Milky Way is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Standing Up in the Milky Way rather than just read about it. In short: "Standing Up in the Milky Way" is the first aired episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on March 9, 2014, simultaneously on various Fox television networks, including National Geographic Channel, FX, Fox Life, and others.

Key takeaways

Standing Up in the Milky Way belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Standing Up in the Milky Way to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Standing Up in the Milky Way from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"Standing Up in the Milky Way" is the first aired episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on March 9, 2014, simultaneously on various Fox television networks, including National Geographic Channel, FX, Fox Life, and others. The episode is presented by the series host astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, directed by Brannon Braga, produced by Livia Hanich and Steven Holtzman, and written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter. The series represents a follow-up of the 1980s television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan, now hosted by Tyson, and explores astronomy, space and time, astrophysics, biology, and other diverse areas of science. In this episode, Tyson takes a tour of the Solar System and the Milky Way galaxy, explores the life of Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno and his vision of the cosmos, goes through a Cosmic Calendar from the beginning of the universe until the present, and ends with a tribute to Carl Sagan. The episode was first presented with a brief introduction by the President of the United States Barack Obama. The episode received positive reviews by critics, but was criticized on issues like the historical accuracy in the presentation of Giordano Bruno's life. It was also nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series at the 66th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, an award it won.

Episode summary

The episode begins with Tyson setting off on the "Ship of the Imagination" to discover Earth’s cosmic address within the Virgo Supercluster and its place in space and time. As the viewer floats along with him past the planets of the Solar System, he skims over Venus; he shows this planet's intense greenhouse effect, as well as its extremely high temperatures. Then he explores Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a hurricane three times the size of Earth, and provides the first comparison showing how Earth's size diminishes when contrasted with the Spot's expanding view. He passes Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object from Earth, and explains the Voyager Golden Record and its purpose. Tyson explains how human sight is limited in the cosmos and, as an example, shows us how extremely dark rogue planets are "seen" with infrared sensors. He then examines the bubble theory, and how the observable universe might be just a bubble in a "never-ending" set of bubbles, analogous to drops of a waterfall. In an animated segment of this episode, Tyson discusses the life and vision of the 16th-century Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) as the person who championed a much more expansive understanding of the Earth's place in the universe, with the Sun being just one star among all the others. (Tyson subsequently dismisses Bruno's visionary experiences as unscientific, but is sympathetic to the persecution he suffered.) Later, he presents the history of the Universe on Carl Sagan's Cosmic Calendar. The episode ends with Tyson's brief speech about Carl Sagan's life and career, and how Sagan inspired him to become an astrophysicist.

Production

Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson were planning on producing a new, updated sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and continued pitching the idea to various television stations even after Sagan's death. In 2008 producer Seth MacFarlane met with Tyson at the Science & Entertainment Exchange, where Tyson told him about rebooting the Cosmos series. MacFarlane took interest in the idea and presented it to the Fox Broadcasting Company television network. "Standing Up in the Milky Way" was directed by Brannon Braga, and written by Druyan and Soter. The narrative sequence of the episode introduced the life of philosopher Giordano Bruno voiced by the series' executive producer Seth MacFarlane, and other additional characters voiced by MacFarlane and actor Paul Telfer. The special effects for the episode were done by the DIVE VFX studio from New York City including "dimensionalization of star clusters, galaxies and nebula" for the show. The episode also introduces a new "Ship of the Imagination" redesigned by concept artist Ryan Church, which was described by The Verge as "J. J. Abrams’ Enterprise." The animated sequences of the episode were produced by Kara Vallow.

Reception

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Standing Up in the Milky Way

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Standing Up in the Milky Way claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Standing Up in the Milky Way before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Standing Up in the Milky Way ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Standing Up in the Milky Way

In research: Standing Up in the Milky Way appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Standing Up in the Milky Way in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Standing Up in the Milky Way is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey episodes, Cultural depictions of Giordano Bruno, Television episodes directed by Brannon Braga, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Standing Up in the Milky Way outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Standing Up in the Milky Way in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Standing Up in the Milky Way means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Standing Up in the Milky Way out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Standing Up in the Milky Way in simple terms?

Why does Standing Up in the Milky Way matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Standing Up in the Milky Way?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Standing Up in the Milky Way.