Review of "PBS Thomas Jefferson, a Film by Ken Burns," DVD

 Review of

PBS Thomas Jefferson, a Film by Ken Burns, DVD

Five out of five stars

Captures the enigmatic genius

 The sheer intellect of Thomas Jefferson is enough to humble the smartest of people. As a writer, statesman, scientist, academic and inventor among other major achievements, he was also a man of contradictions. He was a foremost champion of the basic rights of man, but when he used the term, he generally meant “white men.” In many ways, he was held back from including other genders and races in his call for the assignment of “inalienable rights.”

 Jefferson was a slaveowner that did little to emancipate those he owned. Yet, there is no evidence that he was cruel to his slaves in any way. Although he did occasionally speak against the institution of slavery and seemed to realize that it would eventually tear the country apart, Jefferson took almost no action against that dark feature of American society.

 Among all his achievements, there are three that must be mentioned. The first is that Jefferson was the strongest proponent of making his country a secular one. It cannot be overstated how radical this notion was in the later part of the eighteenth century. The second was his establishment of the first institution of higher learning that was not affiliated with a religious order. This was also a very radical idea for his time. The third was his doubling of the size of the country by purchasing the Louisiana territory from France. There was nothing in the constitution that gave him the power to do so, but when he needed to do so the champion of small central government extended the reach of the federal government.

 As is clear from this video, no matter how much he may have wanted to, there was only so much he could do that was radical in the times he lived. While necessarily limited due to the breadth of Jefferson’s achievements, there is enough to leave the viewer in awe of all Jefferson accomplished. This video should be required viewing in the American history curriculum in both the K-12 and college levels.

Review of "In Search of Dark Matter," by Ken Freeman and Geoff McNamara

Review of

In Search of Dark Matter, by Ken Freeman and Geoff McNamara, ISBN 0387276165

Five out of five stars

Excellent popular explanation of a fundamental principle

 For some time, it has been known that the universe is expanding. There is a well-defined point of origin that is known as the moment of the Big Bang. As the universe exploded into existence the amount of energy and mass were fixed and the various components few away from each other.

 With this fact established, the next major fact that was pursued was determining the amount of mass in the universe. If the amount was above a certain level, then the mutual gravity would cause the components to eventually slow down, reverse their direction and then come together in an event that was referred to as the Big Crunch. If the amount was less than the threshold, then the universe would continue to expand forever, eventually experiencing a heat death.

 Therefore, there is a concerted effort to determine how much matter is in the universe. Initial computations of the amount of matter that was visible clearly indicated that this was  a small percentage of the total matter. The mutual behavior of the components indicated that there was much more matter in the universe. This missing matter was referred to as “Dark Matter.”

 This book is an excellent popular explanation of all facets of this fundamental issue in our understanding of the universe. It starts with an explanation of the fundamental issue of the ultimate fate of the universe and then moves on to the obvious lack of known matter. Following this there are simultaneous explanations of the various types of potential dark matter and the ways in which the improvements in the collection of astronomical data have made it possible to investigate whether the specific postulated forms of dark matter do in fact exist. All are done with a minimum of equations and with images that encapsulate the information.

 While it is unlikely that any human will live to see the universe approach its end, it is important to learn what that end will be. This book gives a great deal of information regarding the search for this ultimate truth.