Knopix News

Professor Brian Cox

If you came of age in the United States in the late ’70s and had even a hint of an interest in the universe, you were very aware of Carl Sagan’s PBS series Cosmos . (It is still, by the way, most widely watched public television program of all time.) If you came of age in Britain pretty much any time since the ’60s up until now, you are very aware of the BBC monthly program The Sky At Night and its host, Sir Patrick Moore. (It happens to be the longest-running television show with the same host in the history of television.) Now, bridging the gap of space, time, and the Atlantic Ocean, comes physicist and University Of Manchester professor Brian Cox. His new television show, Wonders Of The Universe (a co-production of the BBC, the Discovery Channel, and the Science Channel), owes obvious stylistic and thematic debts to both Sagan and Moore. The companion book, published by Harper Design, is of the coffee-table variety and recalls Sagan’s best-selling Cosmos book in weight, dimension, content, and general heft.

With Cox—and his oft-remarked-upon “hipness” and angular Britpop haircut—physics and the wonders inherent in exploring the great beyond are not just rebooted for a new generation, but given an almost breathless exuberance. To coincide with the Stateside première of Wonders Of The Universe and the publication of its companion book of the same name, Cox spoke with The A.V. Club about the reality of global warming, the nonexistence of God, and the irrationality of the Mayan doomsday prophecy.

The A.V. Club: You and your show have been compared to Carl Sagan and Cosmos as well as Patrick Moore and The Sky At Night . What does Wonders Of The Universe have to say or show us that is new?

Brian Cox: Good question. Carl Sagan was a huge influence. Cosmos was on TV in the U.K. when I was 12, in 1980. So that would be the perfect age for a kid who is into astronomy anyway, as many are. And to have that series capture your imagination at that age, it makes an indelible impression on you. I think one of the reasons that Sagan is still relevant today, and one of the reasons he’s very relevant in television, is that his shows were partly polemic. They were not simply—as is the fashion today—these kinds of presentations of what we know and don’t know about the universe, which is exciting and spectacular, but there’s more to it than that. There’s an agenda. Not to science, but to him. He had an agenda. He thought he would build a better world if everybody understood the value of the world and behaved in a scientific manner. He really believed that. He was passionately involved in that perspective.

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