Tyson speaks on job, life
Astrophysicist tells how universe is connected to everyone

By LaNasha Houze
Staff Reporter

At the 39th Annual Honors Convocation Thursday in Ed Landreth Hall Auditorium, speaker Neil deGrasse Tyson, described his job, as an astrophysicist, as his life.

“Above all else there are two things that I am,” Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, said. “First I am an American. I am also a scientist. It’s not a job, it’s my life.”

With humor and quirky facts, such as the 99 billion McDonald’s hamburgers wrapping the surface of the Earth and stacking to the moon, Tyson illustrated to the audience that science is a pertinent aspect of American culture.

“Science literacy has an importance like never before,” he said. “I try to carry with me a cosmic perspective and share the breath and depth of this universe.”

Melissa Sky-Eagle, a senior piano performance major, said Tyson showed the audience scholars are not always dull.

“He was interesting, funny and entertaining,” Sky-Eagle said. “The first misconception that people have about keynote speakers is that they are boring.”

Tyson’s speech was titled “The Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist.” He derived his speech from his memoir “The Sky is not the Limit,” which describes the challenges he faced throughout his career.

“There aren’t that many stars visible in New York,” he said. “There are actually four, and I know all of them.”

Tyson said at the age of 9, after seeing a blanket of stars for the first time at Hayden Planetarium, that he knew his career would be as a future scientist.

“Sometimes I bubble up and can’t contain myself,” said Tyson. “It was as though the universe called to me. From then on I was like the nerd kid. I wear that badge proudly.”

As an astronomer, Tyson described the elements within the human body as being equivalent to the elements within the universe. Tyson said these similarities united all mankind and were the direct result of man being created by a supernova explosion.

“We are all children of the universe,” he said. “The universe is in us, and that is the element of unity that I carry with me.”

Valena Brown, a freshman premajor, said she would have preferred if the speaker did not mention religion in his speech.

“He had me interested, until the end where he stated that we are all children of the universe,” she said. “I was disappointed when he failed to acknowledge the existence of some creator, some person, some being higher than us. I have heard that kind of stuff before, but I did not agree with him not acknowledging God.”

Sky-Eagle said she could relate to Tyson’s theory of the cosmos as well as the uniqueness of Tyson’s position as the first director of the Hayden Planetarium.

“I like to think that music is the same way,” she said. “There are not that many people who are able to make it in that field.”

Tyson said he was fascinated by what happens in the sky because within the sky are the answers to questions that plaque all mankind.

“If you look back through time, across cultures, I don’t think there is a single civilization that has not asked why we are here,” he said. “Not until the 20th century could we address these questions in a scientific manner.”

LaNasha Houze
l.d.houze@student.tcu.edu