I’ve always loved documentaries and especially those documentaries on science. FiOS TV has a lot of content in high definition and On Demand features. There are a lot of movies and TV shows to pick from. The advantage with On Demand is that, you can watch it when you want and you have complete control over the TV schedule. This was one of the main reason I decided to go for FiOS TV.
When it comes to popular science documentary and show hosts, I do have my favorites. Not only do I enjoy them, I also like recommending some good shows to my friends and family.
Of all the hosts out there, I would put in my vote for Brian Cox. He is a physicist, a professor at Manchester and works at the ATLAS experiment at CERN. Brian Cox’s presentations are clear and informative. His manner is totally charming. I do like his Manchester accent! Of the shows he has hosted, The Wonders of the Solar System, The wonders of the Universe and the Big Bag Machine are my favorite.

My number two on the list is Jim Al Kahlili, a British physicist. He too is a classy host. His series (4 or 5) episodes on the rise of chemistry from alchemy is extremely good.

I also enjoy shows hosted by Neil DeGrass Tyson who is the head of the Planetarium in NYC. He is clear in what he explains and does a good job at explaining concepts that are too difficult for an average mind to gasp.

I am not all that fond of Brian Greene’s presentations. Though I have enjoyed some of his shows, I could not give you a logical reason as to why I am not a huge fan of his shows. Something about him grates.

That would be the same for Carl Sagan. I felt that his show ‘Cosmos’ had too many ‘pale blue dots’ and ‘billyuns and billyuns of stuhrs’ and ‘stuhr stuff’ and “who speaks for Earth”. He had an agenda which I can live very well without. But it was singing a whale song that cut it for me. With that whale song, Carl jumped the shark! But this show inspired me a lot, I made a serious turn into trying to understand astrophysics and cosmology after watching the series. Yes, he was florid, verbose, and anything else you can say. But his presentation of the calendar of the universe really got me intrigued about how Homo Sapiens fits into that broad perspective of time. That was a major grabber for me!

My all time favorite from the past goes all the way back to 1969. Bronowski’s -Ascent of Man- series was first rate then and it is now. And Bronowski was not full of himself, as was Carl Sagan. No “billyuns and billyuns”. And (thank goodness) no whale songs.

Michio Kaku is alright, but a bit of a show boat. I could also do with Kaku’s ice skating performance. His presentations have too much of his face compared to the material.
But I think Richard Feynman was the best physics -teacher- that ever was. He did a very fine four part TV series on quantum electrodynamics. Feynman guarded his time very carefully and he spent most of it -doing- physics and related stuff rather than presenting it to the public. He did devote two whole years to teaching undergraduates. The notes to his lectures became the famous three volume – Feynman Lectures- which have sold out year after years since 1962. You won’t find a better undergraduate lecture series than this.

By the way, there is a first rate biography of Richard Feynman by Lawrence Krauss who is a first rate physicist himself. The title is ‘Quantum Man’. He gets into Feynman’s head pretty well. It takes a physicist to know a physicist. Krauss has given several lectures including a TED lecture. First Rate!

Roy Fernandez is a freelancer and an active blogger, he enjoys writing about documentaries and popular TV services like FiOS TV.

Author: royfernandez

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