“The universe united us all, and the cosmos belongs to all of us.” -Charles Liu
One of the Macaulay events that I was most excited for this year was the TEDxCUNY event held at the Macaulay building on November 16th. It was an independently organized TED event. The theme of the event was “Access,” a pillar of the CUNY philosophy. I attended the “Access Your World” section, and was very pleased with my experience.
Although not necessarily my favorite, the most interesting talk I saw was called “Accessing the Cosmos,” done by Charles Liu. Charles Liu is an astrophysics professor at the College of Staten Island, and an associate with the Hayden Planetarium and the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. He has published multiple books, and received the 2001 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award.
From the beginning, Charles stood out by having a child on the stage with him—whom we later learn is his daughter Emma. Although Emma was a bit shy and timid, Professor Liu had an upbeat and charismatic demeanor. He could almost even be described as a bit silly: he puts on a sweatshirt immediately after beginning and sings to the audience in between portions of his speech.
The structure of his talk was much different than other TEDxCUNY speakers. To demonstrate the curiosity of children in the cosmos and to show how education is needed to kids to truly be able to “access” their world, he has his daughter conduct a Q&A session with him where he answered questions on the spot that his daughter and her friends have about the universe. They cover topics such as the color change of the moon in eclipses, how the tides and the moon are linked, the size of the rings of Saturn, how astronauts navigate, whether Pluto is a planet, what stars are made out of, and whether humans can live somewhere other than earth. Having his daughter ask him the questions, wearing a sweatshirt, and sitting down on the stage almost gave him talk the feeling of watching a private conversation between him and his daughter instead of a formal TED lecture.
He reminds the audience that although we strive for success and we set ourselves up for success, it’s okay to make mistakes as they don’t define you—in reference to the possibility that he answer one of the on-the-spot questions incorrectly. Liu finishes by asking us to compare our problems to the number of things in the universe and let than comparison diminish the differences between each of us, as they are nothing in comparison.
Although it was an interestingly structured talk and not necessarily anything I didn’t know before, I enjoyed Liu’s talk for its eccentricity and unique format. Being exposed to new things is why I put myself out there, and learning new and relevant things is why I enjoy TED talks so much. I will be attending more in the future.
