"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself." Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan official website: http://www.carlsagan.com/
|
|
|
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 - December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer who popularised science. He pioneered the field of exobiology and was the key player in setting up a research organisation called SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). He gained worldwide acclaim for his popular science books and the television series Cosmos, which he co-wrote and as well as passionately presented with zeal. In his works he frequently advocated the scientific methodology and empiricism.
Carl was born in Brooklyn, New York. Sagan attended the University of Chicago, where he received a bachelor's degree (1955) and a master's degree (1956) in physics, followed by a doctorate (1960) in astronomy and astrophysics. Further he taught at Harvard University until 1968 and later at Cornell University where he became a full professor in 1971 and directed a lab. His major contributions were in the field of unmanned space missions that explored our solar system. He conceived the idea of adding an unalterable and universal message on spacecraft planned to leave the solar system, with a message that could be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find it. The first message attached to the space probe Pioneer 10 was sent into space with a gold-anodized plaque. Further Carl continued to refine his designs and improvements and the most elaborate such message that he helped to develop was the famous Voyager Golden Record that was sent out with the Voyager space probes headed for a journey outside our solar system.
Carl was also well known as a coauthor of the scientific paper that warned about the dangers of a nuclear winter. His insights regarding the atmosphere of Venus, seasonal changes on Mars, and Saturn's moon Titan set in a new area in space research. He established the fact that the atmosphere of Venus is extremely hot and dense.
He also agreed that global warming as a growing, man-made problem and most strikingly likened it to the natural development of Venus into a hot life-hostile planet through greenhouse gases. He suggested that the seasonal changes on Mars were caused by windblown dust.
Sagan was among the first to pragmatically hypothesize that Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa may possess oceans or lakes, making them possibly habitable for life. Europa’s subsurface ocean was later confirmed by spacecraft Galileo.
Most fascinatingly Sagan was a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life.
Sagan believed that the Drake equation suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations would evolve, but that the lack of evidence of such civilizations as described by the Fermi paradox suggests that technologically advanced civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather rapidly. Saga became almost consumed by addressing this challenge and put forth his energies in identifying and publicizing ways that humanity could destroy itself, with the hope of avoiding such destruction and eventually evolving into what he hoped, a space-faring and wise species.
With a model of the Viking LanderSagan's capability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos.
Carl presented the highly popular television series Cosmos; he also wrote books to popularize science and a novel, Contact, that was a best-seller and had a Hollywood film adaptation in 1997 starring Jodie Foster. The Film won the 1998 Hugo Award.
During his lifetime Carl married three times. His first wife was the famous biologist Lynn Margulis in 1957 with whom he had a child, Dorion Sagan. His second wife Linda Salzman was an artist and they were married in 1968. His third wife in 1981 was author Ann Druyan, to whom he remained married until his death in 1996.
Carl Sagan died at the age of 62, on December 20, 1996, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington after a long and difficult fight with myelodysplasia.
In honor of Carl Sagan on July 5, 1997 The landing site of the unmanned Mars Pathfinder spacecraft was renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station. The Asteroid 2709 Sagan is also named in his honor.
Carl was a significant figure of our era, and is credited to his popularisation of the natural sciences, space exploration, defending democratic values, resisting nationalism, defending humanism, arguing against geocentric and anthropocentric views, pursuing the scientific search for extraterrestrial life.
The 1997 Hollywood Film Contact, based on Sagan's novel of the same name, and completed after his death, touchingly ends with the dedication "For Carl”.
Quotes from Carl Sagan:
We are star-stuff.
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think its forever.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch,
you must first create the universe.
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.
I can find in my undergraduate classes,
bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night,
or even that the Sun is a star.
If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us,
that we are the reason there is a Universe,
does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.
But without it we go nowhere.
It's better to light a candle then to curse the darkness.
It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion,
however satisfying and reassuring.
Our species needs, and deserves,
a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death,
especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others,
if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
Sceptical scrutiny is the means,
in both science and religion,
by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
The brain is like a muscle.
When it is in use we feel very good.
Understanding is joyous.
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.
We might get away with it for a while,
but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power
is going to blow up in our faces.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology,
in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements
profoundly depend on science and technology.
When you make the finding yourself –
even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.
Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 - December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer who popularised science. He pioneered the field of exobiology and was the key player in setting up a research organisation called SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). He gained worldwide acclaim for his popular science books and the television series Cosmos, which he co-wrote and as well as passionately presented with zeal. In his works he frequently advocated the scientific methodology and empiricism.
Carl was born in Brooklyn, New York. Sagan attended the University of Chicago, where he received a bachelor's degree (1955) and a master's degree (1956) in physics, followed by a doctorate (1960) in astronomy and astrophysics. Further he taught at Harvard University until 1968 and later at Cornell University where he became a full professor in 1971 and directed a lab. His major contributions were in the field of unmanned space missions that explored our solar system. He conceived the idea of adding an unalterable and universal message on spacecraft planned to leave the solar system, with a message that could be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find it. The first message attached to the space probe Pioneer 10 was sent into space with a gold-anodized plaque. Further Carl continued to refine his designs and improvements and the most elaborate such message that he helped to develop was the famous Voyager Golden Record that was sent out with the Voyager space probes headed for a journey outside our solar system.
Carl was also well known as a coauthor of the scientific paper that warned about the dangers of a nuclear winter. His insights regarding the atmosphere of Venus, seasonal changes on Mars, and Saturn's moon Titan set in a new area in space research. He established the fact that the atmosphere of Venus is extremely hot and dense.
He also agreed that global warming as a growing, man-made problem and most strikingly likened it to the natural development of Venus into a hot life-hostile planet through greenhouse gases. He suggested that the seasonal changes on Mars were caused by windblown dust.
Sagan was among the first to pragmatically hypothesize that Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa may possess oceans or lakes, making them possibly habitable for life. Europa’s subsurface ocean was later confirmed by spacecraft Galileo.
Most fascinatingly Sagan was a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life.
Sagan believed that the Drake equation suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations would evolve, but that the lack of evidence of such civilizations as described by the Fermi paradox suggests that technologically advanced civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather rapidly. Saga became almost consumed by addressing this challenge and put forth his energies in identifying and publicizing ways that humanity could destroy itself, with the hope of avoiding such destruction and eventually evolving into what he hoped, a space-faring and wise species.
With a model of the Viking LanderSagan's capability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos.
Carl presented the highly popular television series Cosmos; he also wrote books to popularize science and a novel, Contact, that was a best-seller and had a Hollywood film adaptation in 1997 starring Jodie Foster. The Film won the 1998 Hugo Award.
During his lifetime Carl married three times. His first wife was the famous biologist Lynn Margulis in 1957 with whom he had a child, Dorion Sagan. His second wife Linda Salzman was an artist and they were married in 1968. His third wife in 1981 was author Ann Druyan, to whom he remained married until his death in 1996.
Carl Sagan died at the age of 62, on December 20, 1996, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington after a long and difficult fight with myelodysplasia.
In honor of Carl Sagan on July 5, 1997 The landing site of the unmanned Mars Pathfinder spacecraft was renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station. The Asteroid 2709 Sagan is also named in his honor.
Carl was a significant figure of our era, and is credited to his popularisation of the natural sciences, space exploration, defending democratic values, resisting nationalism, defending humanism, arguing against geocentric and anthropocentric views, pursuing the scientific search for extraterrestrial life.
The 1997 Hollywood Film Contact, based on Sagan's novel of the same name, and completed after his death, touchingly ends with the dedication "For Carl”.
Quotes from Carl Sagan:
We are star-stuff.
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think its forever.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch,
you must first create the universe.
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.
I can find in my undergraduate classes,
bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night,
or even that the Sun is a star.
If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us,
that we are the reason there is a Universe,
does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.
But without it we go nowhere.
It's better to light a candle then to curse the darkness.
It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion,
however satisfying and reassuring.
Our species needs, and deserves,
a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death,
especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others,
if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
Sceptical scrutiny is the means,
in both science and religion,
by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
The brain is like a muscle.
When it is in use we feel very good.
Understanding is joyous.
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.
We might get away with it for a while,
but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power
is going to blow up in our faces.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology,
in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements
profoundly depend on science and technology.
When you make the finding yourself –
even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.
Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
