Neil:

You and I share many perspectives with regard to government, science, education, and many other subjects. Your appearances on Bill Maher and Reddit (edit: it's first time!) were favorites of mine, and you stand in a unique position as a rare voice of reason, which has rightfully earned you near stardom.

Right now a number of trends suggest an impending revolution in education. Education is ripe for disruption, for universities have become absurdly bureaucratic, expensive, and ineffectual at teaching.

In the last year, communities online have begun self-organizing their own classes to teach subjects both online and in person to meet their own interests, academic and personal. Reddit is one of them (reddit.com/r/UniversityOfReddit). A handful of startups have sprung up as well, including some started this last fall by Stanford professors, offering free, online, and open classes from top-level faculty. One of them garnered over 160,000 sign-ups.

If you are familiar, the KhanAcademy has taught millions of students across the world subjects in math, science, and economics for free via Youtube, while making headlines and earning the financial attention of Google and the Gates Foundation.

The current model of the university is highly outdated, and with technology we can do much better. The cost of imparting information online is literally zero, as these communities have shown.

When a big-time media mogul desperately asked Mark Zuckerberg how to reproduce a revolutionary, bustling online community like Facebook, Zuckerberg said simply, "You can't," followed by a long pause and geeky stare. He then explained that you cannot just make a community. He explained communities already exist, and they are already doing what they want to, and that our goal should instead to be help them do what they want to do better, by bringing them 'elegant organization.'

Every new, online class I've spoken of has demonstrated the existence and the size of these communities, and I am working to bring them proper organization.

I want to bring the millions of learners across the world elegant organization with an education that is dynamic and "crowdsourced." Really, a democratic university- one where nothing is static, and the community determines what they want to learn, who will teach it, and perhaps where, if not taught online. The economics of it are simple; If we don't gain enough interest in a class, we simply don't do it, and no one is out anything. If we do the class, everyone learns a lot and education changes forever. Make no mistake, this would have to be HIGHLY affordable to everyone, if not free.

If you are familiar, education across the US, and particularly in California where I live, has seen epic funding cuts, and access is becoming very, very limited. People want to learn. They want to learn from great teachers. They want to learn cheaply and effectively, and they want accreditation for their efforts.

These education alternatives all have offered one unique piece to the new education puzzle, but while they've pointed in the right direction, I want to take it further.

Anyone who studies education will tell you that as class after class have shown, the quality of the teacher is everything. Their passion for their subject, their intimate knowledge of industry trends, their thought-provoking questions and their ability to clearly convey such knowledge are all of paramount importance in maintaining their students' motivation and overall success.

I want to harness the best teachers in the world to reach an audience of learners never seen before. Salman Khan has done so already, for the world has verified that he is a natural born teacher. And so are you. I have already polled one online community, and there would be significant interest in seeing you teach a course online in Physics. You Mr. Tyson are a natural born teacher, and they want to learn from you. I hope you are up for the challenge.

I want to end the goliath bureaucracy and exclusivity associated with learning higher education. A major factor here needing renovation is accreditation, and I see a new, effective, and more accurate way to give students (and employers) affordable, valid, and trustworthy accreditation for their work.

If teaching a physics class to more students at once than anyone has ever taught before while creating a highly accessible learning/teaching platform for the world is something you would be interested in participating in, then I would absolutely love to discuss with you further details about the unique qualities that would make this work, and of course, I would love your input.

I'm writing this from a Boeing 737, six miles above the earth. As the Wright Brothers have long ago proven, no obstacle cannot be overcome.

Thanks, Derek Schipper