Seven Wonders of the New World | Cosmos: Possible Worlds
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: We all feel the weight of the shadows on our future. But in another time, every bit as ominous as our own, there were those who could see a way through the darkness to find a star to steer by. Carl Sagan wrote, "I was a child in a time of hope. I wanted to be a scientist from my earliest school days. The crystallizing moment came when I first caught on that the stars are mighty suns, when it first dawned on me how staggeringly far away they must be to appear as mere points of light in the sky. I'm not sure I even knew the meaning of the word 'science' then, but I wanted somehow to immerse myself in all that grandeur. I was gripped by the splendor of the universe, transfixed by the prospect of understanding how things really work, of helping to uncover deep mysteries, of exploring new worlds, maybe even literally. It has been my good fortune to have had that dream in part fulfilled. For me, the romance of science remains as appealing and new as it was on that day when I was shown the wonders of the 1939 New York World's Fair."
[fireworks bursting]
This is where the future became a place. But how could there be hope in 1939? The angriest voices had taken the world stage, preaching hatred and tribal division. The most cataclysmic war in history, which would take the lives of 16 million human beings, was only just beginning. Yet even as darkness descended, it was possible to awaken the young Carl Sagan and his contemporaries with a thrilling vision of the future—one that was powerful enough to inspire many of them to do the years of hard work required to become scientists and engineers.
The miracle of television became a reality to the public at the 1939 World's Fair. We had learned to manipulate electrons into what would become a civilization-altering force. This working model of a TV set was transparent to convince the skeptics that what they were seeing was not just motion-picture images. The images on the television screen were actually live signals from across time and space. A possible world of high technology was first glimpsed here.
[emotive string music]