Philip Plait: How to defend Earth from asteroids

Grant Ross

The founder of Bad Astronomy.com Which is a website dedicated to debunkMyths about outer space, Plait has alsoWritten a book called “Death from the Skys!”

Astronomer and a web designer.

On TEDS Plait gave a speech talking about howWe should, will or might need to protect ourselvesFrom asteroids in the future.

He starts out with, “65 Million years ago the Dinosaurs had a bad day.”He then talked about not only the size of a 6 mile long asteroid slamming down into the Yucatan Peninsula, but he described the impact.If you took every nuclear weapon ever built at the height of the Cold War, lumped them together and blew them up at the same time, that would be one one-millionth of the energy released at that moment.” (Phil Plait on the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs )”

The Yucatan Peninsula is in the Mexico And is at the it of Mexico.Scientist now agree according to Plaitthat this is the site of the Dinosaur Killer.

Whipping out 75% of species and blocking the sun with debris and dust.

Me made the comment that if you killed all bugs In the world the planet would die,Kill off all humans and the world would flourish. Gulf of

Comets are out in space and do pose a threat to us, And according to Plait its just a matter of finding them and Trying to find a way to stop them.

He showed several pictures showing the size and devastation a asteroid or comet Could make

Bringing up the end of the world he mentioned the Mayan calendar and how peopleHave mentioned a giant asteroid devastating the earth and killing us all.And then he mention Apophis.

This is Apophis

So how are we going to protect ourselves from something so large that it could destroy the earth and kill us all.

Nope, this isnt the movies

But there is an ideaThat Plait talks aboutthat seems to comeFrom Hollywood.

Operation Deep Impact was launched in 2005.It was to hit a moving comet going 10 miles perSecond. It was to strike the comet so they could Try to get samples.

It succeeded and also when it stuck the Comet it moved it orbit….just a little bit.

But enough to help create a theory of moving large asteroids like ApophisOut of the way…like jumping out of the Way of a car headed towards you.

In using the TED Commandments I would have to say that Philip Plait used Commandment #1.

Dream Big. Strive to create the best talk you have ever given. Reveal something never seen before .Do something the audience will remember forever. Share an idea that could change the world.

Plait used lots of humor

And showed he had no remorse for being a nerd

He even quoted Spock

“They have an ion drive, they are 100’sof years ahead of us we don’t have one.”

Then as he laughed he said” the USS Enterprisedosent’t have a Ion Drive. BUT WE DO!”

If I had to grade this presentation by theDynamism Scale I would have to give it…

4 out of 5

I feel that he was very relatable to the audience and that he had their attention.He was animated and didn’t just stand in one place.

He could have gone into more detail, although he might have I only watched A 15 minute clip.He tried to goive examples of size of the blasts and of the asteroids,He could have made pictures or had better examples

If I had to compare Philip Plait to Sir Ken Robinson I would say..

Ken Robinson seems to be more comfortable with speaking and has a very well knowledge of what he was speaking about. He had the audiences attentionAnd used lots of humor and had from what I saw no props or pictures just him on stage.Plus, there is an uncanny resemblance to Actor Michael Caine..

Sir Ken Robinson Michael Caine

Philip Plait was very comfortable speaking but you could tell he was not a professionalAnd he at times seemed like he had to use his power point to remember where he was.He used lots of humor, especially showing he was a nerd and a Star Trek fan.He did have the audiences attention and he was knowledgeable of the subject matterHe was talking about.

So what have I learned by watching this TED clip and listening to Philp Plait?Several things…

Be yourself, use yourself, your education and your humor to keep the audiencesattention

Make sure if you use jokes, props and pictures they need to be relevant and stillEntertaining and stimulating as well.

The EndBrought to you by Grant W. Ross 2012

This is a GrantLand Production