RocketSTEM Issue #6 - March 2014 | Page 21

Tyson is a conduit to knowledge By Brandon Fibbs What to say about Neil deGrasse Tyson that hasn’t already been said? These are the facts: Neil is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. He is an astrophysicist and New York Times bestselling author, former host of “NOVA ScienceNow,” and frequent guest on such shows as Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” “Real Time with Bill Maher” and “Jeopardy.” He is also, arguably, the country’s most recognized science educator and that most rare of specimens — a celebrity scientist. Those are the facts. But for me, Neil is so much more. He is also a dear friend and mentor. Neil has been a tremendous force in my adulthood, both a sounding board and a shaman to sea changes in my personal life and the philosophies that orient it. I first met Neil deGrasse Tyson a decade ago at a large space symposium. At the intimate dinners and large public events that followed, in which politicians and movie stars hung on his every word just like those who happened to recognize him on the street, I’ve had the honor of observing how a teacher of the highest caliber speaks into the lives of his students. The thing about Neil is, when you spend any amount of time with him, he makes you think you can do astrophysics. You can’t, of course. It is profoundly difficult stuff. But his explanations are so lucid and so clear that he reduces the most complex ideas to something shockingly intuitive. He does this not by dumbing the material down, but by elevating your aptitude; by transforming your perspective and the vantage point Brandon Fibbs is a writer and producer in Los Angeles, California. A former film critic, he was the Research Coordinator on “Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey,” his very first Hollywood gig. He is currently working on the Science Channel’s upcoming threepart documentary, “The New Race for Space.” 19 www.RocketSTEM.org 19