Who Flung the Moon?

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

I did, that’s who! And on national TV, no less. But let me back up and tell the story from the beginning.

As regular readers of this blog know, I recorded an interview in June for a program on the History Channel called “The Universe.” Here are links to my previous blog posts about the interview:

• History Channel, Part 1
• History Channel, Part 2
• History Channel and “This Week’s Finds”
• History Channel Appearance — Next Tuesday!

The episode, called, “The Day the Moon was Gone,” debuted Tuesday night. Kay and I both thought that this was one of the best episodes of “The Universe” that we have seen. In my previous posts, I expressed some apprehension — about errors of fact that seemed to be creeping into the script, and about the general tendency of the program to exaggerate things. However, I am happy to report that most of the concerns I had did not materialize.

There were lots of good things about the episode. I was very interested to hear what the other scientists would say, and I thought that for the most part they had interesting ideas, including some that I would never have thought of myself. I really enjoyed seeing Bill Hartmann again. Everything he says just sounds so cogent and well thought-out. To me, he has the same sort of avuncular, “That’s the way it is,” presence that Walter Cronkite did.

I got quite a bit more camera time than I expected, and that was nice in a vain sort of way. The coolest thing was that they added some CGI effects to a couple of my clips. One time, when I was explaining tidal friction, I made some hand gestures to pantomime the moon moving outward from Earth. They dubbed in a little moon graphic to move along with my hands, so that it looked as if I was swinging the moon around in a circle and then flinging it away. What a feeling of omnipotence! I told Kay, “I should have called my blog, ‘Who Flung the Moon’!”

Other good points about the program: The pacing was not as frenetic as some episodes of “The Universe.” There was much less repetition than there often is. Most, though not all, of the topics were presented in logical sequence. Fundamentally, I think the concept worked. And that was a surprise to me.

When I first heard about the topic, a program about how Earth would be different if we had no moon, I was very skeptical. How, I wondered, could scientists answer a question with a fundamentally unscientific premise? The moon cannot disappear. So in some sense, you can make any statement you want, and no one can really prove or disprove it.

Nevertheless, I think that the episode worked because it got the scientists to think in unfamiliar and unexpected ways about the moon, and to bring out facts that they knew that maybe the average person doesn’t. Case in point: When I tell you that the solar tide is about 1/2 the size of the lunar tide, you yawn and say who cares? But when I tell you that if the moon went away you would suddenly have a huge tsunami as the water redistributes itself, all of a sudden it’s kind of interesting.

There was one minor disappointment for me. The narration did, on three or four occasions, try to argue that the giant impact that formed the moon is also responsible for Earth’s plate tectonics. I have previously discussed in this blog why I do not think that conclusion is correct. However, in the context of the whole episode it really was not that big a deal. I think that 95 percent of the audience probably did not even notice or care. I’m afraid that I lectured Adrian, the director, on this point so many times that by the end I was sounding pedantic even to myself. So I’m letting it go. Don’t let it spoil your enjoyment of the episode!

If you missed “The Day the Moon was Gone,” according to the History Channel website the episode will air again on September 8 at 8:00 Eastern time. I suspect it will also air at least a couple more times this week, but the website did not have those times listed.

Tags: giant impact, History Channel, interview, tides, Universe, William Hartmann
Posted in Media, Science | 1 Comment »