/sci/ - Science & Math

Why should scientists be paid? I just finished watching Carl Sagans cosmos so I think I have a really good understanding of your field but it still doesn't make any sense to me... why is the government giving billions of dollars to people who just wear lab coats, smoke pot, and look at really bright lights thinking that the "lasers" are revolutionary technology (if they're even doing good science- if they're not, then they're just staring at the fucking sky while they're tripping and thinking about how the amount of light from each star can affect its composition like it even fucking matters to us)

Tell me sci, I don't want to hate all of you guys but it seems to me that you're a huge waste of the countries resources.

Can we take a moment to thank this man

>>8120588
>born too soon.

Sometimes I think, how lucky we are to live in this time, the first moment in human history when we are, in fact visiting other worlds and engaging in a deep reconnaissance of the cosmos. But if we had been born in a much earlier age, no matter how great our dedication, we couldn't have understood what the stars and planets are. We would not have known that there were other suns and other worlds. This is one of the great secrets wrested from nature, through a million years of patient observation and courageous thinking

I don't know anything about Carl Sagan. Recommend some something to watch to introduce myself to him.

>On 10 January 1991, a paper appearing in the Journal Nature, stated Paul Crutzen's calculations that the setting alight of the Kuwait oil wells would produce a "nuclear winter", with a cloud of smoke covering half of the Northern Hemisphere after 100 days had passed and beneath the cloud, temperatures would be reduced by 5-10 Celsius.[33] This was followed by articles printed in the Wilmington morning star and the Baltimore Sun newspapers in mid to late January 1991, with the popular TV scientist personality of the time, Carl Sagan, who was also the co-author of the first few nuclear winter papers along with Richard P. Turco, John W. Birks, Alan Robock and Paul Crutzen together collectively stated that they expected catastrophic nuclear winter like effects with continental sized impacts of "sub-freezing" temperatures as a result of if the Iraqis went through with their threats of igniting 300 to 500 pressurized oil wells and they burned for a few months.

>In retrospect, it is now known that smoke from the Kuwait oil fires only affected the weather pattern throughout the Persian Gulf and surrounding region during the periods that the fires were burning in 1991

Is there any such thing as a book that gives you an extensive overview of what we know in physics, and how we know it, but without any of the maths?

Is pop-science a cult?

>The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.

>The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

>The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

>The leader is not accountable to any authorities

>The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

>The group is preoccupied with making money.

What do you guys think of this guy?