This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for years, though the only thing I knew about it was that it was authored by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium and a public advocate for science, with a podcast. Merlin’s Tour of the Universe isn’t a regular monograph, but rather a collection of questions and answers via newspaper. Tyson answers through his alter-ego Merlin, who is evidently quite old. The book is rather dated on some facts, of course, and some views: Merlin sees no threat to Pluto’s planetary status at all, while NDT himself caused a stir by removing Pluto from the hall of planets even before the astronomy cabal had exiled it into the outermost darkness of “dwarf planets”. The book was published in 1989, so this is no surprise — though realizing there were no identified planets outside of our solar system at this time was a bit weird for me. Generally, I enjoyed the format and the content, though there were some oddities like Merlin declaring that Earth should not be capitalized because it wasn’t named after anyone, unlike the other planets. Merlin may be a space wizard, but as far as English grammar goes, he’s an orc: proper names don’t need to have a person involved! The variety of questions was good, and gets better the more it moves away from Earth: I especially enjoyed Merlin’s attempt to explain why people can “see” the Milky Way while still living within the Milky Way via blueberry pancakes. (I am very partisan towards blueberry pancakes, however.) There are many perspective-rattling questions here, and some amusingly dated, like debates over when the Millennium began. Ah, for a world when 2001 was thought of as only the “real” date the New Millennium began. Now we live in one in which when Tyson proposes readers get together at a certain spot in New York City at a certain date in 2018, I had to Google Maps it to see if the place still existed or had been removed by jihadis. Despite this book’s age, it has its charms, especially Merlin’s penchant for responding in poetry..

Here is one such poem:

Mercury has no moon, and
Venus does not, it is true.
But Earth, of course, has one, while Planet Mars, take note, has two.
Mighty Jupiter, by jove,
Displays sixteen moons—what gall!
But Saturn sets the record
With seventeen —large and small.
Uranus has quite a few
With its fifteen moons in thrall.
Neptune’s eight, and Pluto’s one
Tallies sixty moons in all

I had ChatGPT “update” the poem thusly:

Mercury has no moon, and
Venus none as well, it’s true.
But Earth, of course, has only one,
While Mars holds tightly two.

Mighty Jupiter, by Jove,
Parades ninety-five in all!
Yet Saturn tops the table—
One-forty-six, large and small.

Uranus has twenty-eight,
In Neptune’s thrall are sixteen.
And Pluto, classed a dwarf, has five—
Its family can be seen.

So tally them together,
This grand celestial run:
Nearly three-hundred moons we know—
And still we’ve just begun!

Quotes:

Dear Merlin,
I don’t understand how a black hole could become so dense that
it could be the size of an atom
Erin French
Lansing. Michigan

Dear Erin:
Neither does anybody else.