But don’t think that we’re throwing machismo or the ability to talk to girls out the window—this week’s man is a powerful public speaker, has his own TV show, and was named Time’s Sexiest…Astrophysicist. Still: if you haven’t met Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, trust us—we’re dealing with a badass here.
Even if you don’t follow this “science” fad, there’s a number of ways you might have heard of Mr. Tyson. For starters, he’s starring in an update of the classic Carl Sagan educational program, Cosmos. A natural choice, considering Sagan personally tried to recruit the lecture-giving teenager to Cornell, but lost him to Harvard because it’s Harvard. Aw, Cornell…one of the best colleges in the country, but all it gets are Andy Bernard and safety school jokes. When will America’s brightest realize it was you, Cornell, YOU, all along, who truly loved them?
Anyway, opting for Crimson over Big Red, the native New Yorker occupied his non-cracking-the-mysteries-of-the-universe time with crew and wrestling, so we know he’s also gained complete mastery over the need for sleep and food. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a mustachioed Doc Savage.
For those who spend more time on internet message boards, you might recognize the meme based on him talking about Isaac Newton’s genius. But really, we assume that you’re most familiar with the time that Tyson singlehandedly killeda planet.
More specifically, he downgraded Pluto to a dwarf planet, but still—when’s the last time you told a celestial being that it was kicked out of the Solar System?
Not only did Tyson change something that people held as fact for most of their lives, but he also excluded the only planet discovered by an American. No wonder there were people taking it to the streets. Still, the man sticks by the science that got him there, which you’ve got to respect.
Tyson’s cool disposition doesn’t just come out when he’s nuking cherished cosmology. His born-and-raised Manhattan ability to remain completely unfazed has been turned into its own meme:
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