10 orbits on...

We've been 10 times around the sun without him.

Have you ever noticed that there are just some people who seemed to be especially "changed" by Carl Sagan? Those who go so “ga-ga” over him, that even ten years after his death, they still blog, gush, and talk nearly incessantly about him? And these are often the people least likely to otherwise worship, idolize, or even get excited about a professional athlete, celebrity, rock star, authority or politician.

I’m one of those people. My life-trajectory was tugged and defined by the gravity of Carl Sagan. He gave all of us reasons to cherish the pale blue dot and “all that ever was or is or ever will be.” He personified the Cosmos – literally.

He was a gifted scientist, communicator, dad, and human being. He moved millions and millions to see.

But what’s more incredible than how many he did move, is how many have somehow missed the message. Because make no mistake - and he would be the first to admit it – this is about the message not the man. As endearing as he was, this is not a cult of personality, but of the Cosmos.

Carl Sagan articulated poetic and accessible accounts of reality that were so beautiful and simple that once you understood what he was saying, you would never see the world the same way again. Everything was meaningful and awesome. So ask yourself if you understand what he was saying. Do you have any idea what you are missing? Please, take some time to get to know what Carl Sagan was telling us. So many smart, thoughtful, and loving people can't be wrong. I invite you to join the club.

I often wonder how much better our world be if he were still here to offer his insights and guidance. But he is gone. And the rest of us who did hear him can only forge ahead, doing what we can to open people’s eyes.

Rich Blundell
Omniscopic

A Poem for the Celebration

Carl Sagan's works have profoundly influenced my life for the better and informed my whole way of thinking. I'm glad he lived.

I'm including a poem inspired in part by "Pale Blue Dot." This poem uses religious terms - 'God,' 'Hallelujah,' but they aren't intended in a literal, theistic sense. They have resonance because of my upbringing and my culture, but one could replace them with similar words from any culture for the same effect. I think, somehow, Mr. Sagan would have liked it. So here's my contribution.

- John Sisk


In Good Humor

Cold cables carry warm laughter;
Dark night gently cradles bright-eyed lovers on through morning;
The sun rises and the sun sets.

Brave-chested birds, blue like sky-flecks, like star-flecks,
Like chords from God's guitar, strut and fly like
The shining gossamer of memory through forests
As green as the eyes of meaning:
Islands in the deep Pacific, themselves born
From spurting streams of rock-as-liquid, are
Stone-as-annihilation from some subterranean sea of fire,
That sea itself the hidden, brilliant rind of the world-fruit,
Tossing brief on a lonely limb of the Universe.

What then is the music of our solitary sphere?

The seed sings the tree, the tree
Sings the leaf, and the leaf's song
Is the flower, that blood-bright jewel
That kisses my eye for an hour
And leaves as Beauty does:
A gloaming hope, a gleaming vision, and -
Gone, leaving only fragrance.
I sing Hallelujah.

- Copyright John Sisk 2004.

More than an Inspiration

In an offhand remark to my husband, I said, of course a googol is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. He was impressed, because how in the world would I know such a thing? As I recall, I learned that as a ten year old, watching Carl unroll a long tape about an empty village...

I rediscovered Carl's work as an adult, as I examined and ultimately discarded my religious beliefs. He gave the world the permission it needed to understand that even if there aren't any gods and heavens, it doesn't matter, because what is here already is so incredible.

- the freethoughtmom

Celebrating Sagan

I'm a brazilian MD and I was a superstitious and religious teenager when I read "The Dragons of Eden". That reading changed my life, helped me to choose my career and now I grow my children in a humanistic, rationalistic and scientific education. Earlier today I went with my wife to drink a couple of beers in his honour. What a loss for this irrational world.

André Bezerra

En memoria de Carl Sagan

Hoy 20 de Diciembre, 2006 se suman 10 años de la partida tan inesperada de Carl Sagan, el Astrónomo, el Ciéntifico (PhD), el Visionario, el Maestro que además the tantas contribuciones nos dejó su serie Cosmos para la TV en la que exploró todo: Desde el átomo hasta la vastedad del Universo y la cual inspiró a tantas personas a interesarse en la Ciencia en general y en especial en la Astronomía. Una de sus tantas frases quedó grabada para siempre: "Afirmaciones extraordinarias requieren evidencias extraordinarias" la cual fué su respuesta al preguntársele su opinión sobre los reportes de la precencia de los OVNIs (UFOs). Siempre amable, siempre sonriente, su visión y su interpretación del espacio y del tiempo fueron una inspiración para millones de nosotros.

Gracias Carl Sagan… lo echamos tanto de menos.
Herbert Erdmenger
La Rioja, Villa Canales
Guatemala, Guatemala

Cosmos

I remember seeing Cosmos for the first time and then eagerly awaiting each rebroadcast. This series not only introduced me to cosmology but to Carl Sagan himself. From that time on, I read every one of his books. I believe he did for the universe what Cousteau did for the oceans.

C. R. Berman, Jr.
Collegiate Professor (Science)
University of Maryland University College

Por el recuerdo de un gran cientifico

Estimados Señores

Durante la adolescencia y cuando estudiaba ingeniería, el Dr. Carl Sagan representaba para mi, el arquetipo de un científico, Docente y divulgador de ciencias por excelencia. Todavia recuerdo sus explicaciones sobre nuestra presencia en el cosmos, la teoría de la relatividad, y muchos más momentos que impactaron en mi mente joven sobre los profundos avances de las ciencias y tecnologías. El Libro "El Cerebro de Broca", continua en mi biblioteca personal, y lo he leido en más de una oportunidad. Un texto tan eclectico, tan bien orientado a la aclaración de una personalidad tan compleja como la del Dr. Broca; abrio mi mente a un grado de mayor tolerancia hacia un saber distinto, una definición de vida diferente; y confirmo para mi cuan atrapados estamos en nuestra telaraña de espacio-tiempo. Al morir el Dr. mi primera imagen fue su sonrisa y esas ganas infatigables de aprender, que ha servido en más de una oportunidad para alentarme a continuar en mi vida de docente universitario. Tambien pense que injusta que es muchas veces la vida, que alguien tan poderosamente positivo ya no estuviese con nosotros, mientras tantos personajes dantescos pupulan a nuestro alrededor, provistos de la mayor salud. Se que el forma parte del universo, y es consciente de todo lo que hizo, y como influyo en un mar de gente desconocida, entre las cuales me cuento. Nosotros en Argentina hemos podido tener personalidades como el Dr. Favaloro, que tanto hizo por la humanidad y aumentar la luz entre tanta oscuridad de la ignorancia. Gente como el Dr. Sagan, y nuestro Dr. Favaloro hacen que este mundo sea un poco mejor, más sabio y con predominancia del amor al conocimiento.

Muchas Gracias

Ing. Aguilera Sergio Omar (MBA-MPE)
Prof. Sistemas Operativos
Fac. Tecnología Informática
Univ. de Belgrano

From Carolyn Porco

I remember ten years ago today very well. I was in Hawaii and received a phone call very early in the morning from a fellow colleague and friend of both mine and Sagan's, telling me that Carl had died. We talked for a long time. It was such a shock: We had all thought he was out of the woods.

---------------

I had the privilege of knowing Carl ever since I was a young graduate student in planetary sciences, and working with him on the Voyager imaging team. He was a very special individual. And very old world, too. I always half expected him to kiss my hand and bow whenever we greeted each other. Such a gentle man was he.

I remember being thrilled to be asked to work with him, his wife Ann Druyan, and others in crafting the on-screen character of the protagonist, Ellie Arroway, in the movie he never lived to see, Contact. I decimated the original script, had very little to say about it that was any good, and yet he graciously, even eagerly, accepted all my criticisms. It was just the way he was.

In my mind, he set the standard for how a scientist should conduct himself: Open to all ideas and opinions, and with grace and dignity, ready to do intellectual battle in defense of the truth.

There have been many people who have been touted as `the next Carl Sagan', but he was truly irreplaceable. I, for one, miss him a great deal, and often find myself wishing that he were around to calm the hysteria and steer us right.

To paraphrase his own words: In a hundred billion galaxies, we will not find another.

----------------

The day he died, I was asked by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to submit my thoughts on his death for their on-line memorial. This is what I wrote:

"Of all the people I have met in the course of my scientific career, no one was more gracious, understanding, respectful and encouraging towards me than Carl. From my very first professional presentation at the age of 21, to my current position as the Cassini imaging team leader, Carl was there, always, with a kind, gentle word of support. I believe that he cared for people, genuinely, in that special way that distinguishes great humanitarian leaders. And I believe that underlying his life's work was a bedrock faith in the fragility, dignity and goodness of all humankind.

"His passing is a heartbreaking loss - for his family, for the community of scientists that he walked among, and for the world. We who remain on Earth have lost our guardian angel. He is part of the cosmos now."

Perhaps a bit over the top at the end, but then again, it was a sad day and I was crying when I wrote it.

Carolyn Porco
Cassini Imaging Team leader
Boulder, CO
http://ciclops.org

PS: For those who might want to read about Carl's life in brief, here is a review, published in the Guardian, that I wrote of one of the biographies about him that came out soon after his death. It is here, at the Guardian.

More Blog-a-thon Posts

Sorry it took so long to get these up, it's been a busy day and blogger has been giving us some trouble. Here's another list of blog-a-thon posts that were sent our way:

Chris McCoy aka El Destructo has a Sagan quote of the day at Memphilter.

John Newman at campuscodger.

Phil says Carl Sagan was one of the greatest people of the twentieth century. I agree.

Mark Madsen at Extended Phenotype has a nice post and a nice blog name, too.

Heber Rizzo gave us two links, here and here. Both en Espanol.

Kent Cline at Carbonfish.

Chris Patil at Ouroboros.

And Ms. Sid Simpson in Pinellas Park, Florida, participates on her livejournal page.


Thanks everyone!

Cosmos and Love

When I was at turbulent time, I wrote this poem dedicated to a girl I loved inspired by Cosmos and by Mr. Sagan.

Los átomos de tu cuerpo

Alguna vez leí
que en el inicio del universo,
todos los átomos
que componen la materia que lo forma
estaban tan comprimidos que ocupaban el mismo espacio.
Entonces imagino,
todos los átomos
que componen las moléculas
que componen tu cuerpo,
y el mío,
ocupando el mismo espacio...

Thank you for everything, Carl Sagan

Thank You, After 100.

David and I originally planned to collaborate on an article or two, perhaps a short audio documentary, to celebrate the life and impact of Carl Sagan. We hoped that we could shop our work around and at best get it published. Needless to say, like so many things, the project fell to the wayside.

As today's anniversary approached we began posting Sagan content to our personal blogs. That put us in the mood, and before we knew we launched Celebrating Sagan.

After 8 days and 100 posts we are in awe of the support and attention the community has given this project.

It is incredible to live in a time where it is possible to create a living memorial to honor someone. Fortunate for us Dr. Sagan was not just anyone. And because the good Doctor meant so much to so many people Celebrating Sagan took off, and here we are, creating a memorial as a community.

Thank you all for your work.

Gracias

No sabría expresar debidamente hasta que punto ver Cosmos fue importante para mí. Entonces era muy pequeño y pienso que me dio elementos para desarrollar muchos de los mejores aspectos de mi identidad. No me dedico al ámbito científico pero ¿quién puede pasarse de una visión del universo como la que nos explicó Sagan? ¿Quién puede pasarse de una visión crítica, honesta e informada sobre el mundo que nos rodea?

Sin duda hay miles de personas en la misma situación: la labor divulgativa de Sagan ha mejorado el mundo.

G. Centenera

Earliest Memory.

My earliest and most personal memory of Carl Sagan is of a time I had coffee with him in the library of the Genetics Department at Stanford Medical School. The time was the 1961-62 school year; I was a senior Biology major doing an undergraduate research project connected with Multivator, a life-detection instrument system we hoped would be part of the Viking Missions to Mars, and Carl was a visitor in Joshua Lederberg's laboratory. I think this was the first and probably the only time an astronomer has been on the faculty of a medical school.

Anyway, I was in the departmental library, where the coffee machine was located, and Carl walked in. We immediately got into a conversation about exobiology, the search for life on Mars, and prebiotic chemistry in general. He encouraged me to go into exobiology and predicted that if there were enough researchers, we might have a self-replicating system in a decade or so.

As it turned out, I didn't follow his suggestion, largely because I felt that I was much better at biology than chemistry, but since 2001, I've been working with Stanley Miller on prebiotic chemistry and with Jeffrey Bada on detecting biomarkers on Mars. Thus, after forty years, I finally took Carl's advice and got into exobiology, as I should have originally. We still don't have a self-replicating system, but impressive progress has been made with ribozymes that can copy limited stretches of RNA, so it's probably just a matter of time before we do.

This incident was an inspiration and I followed Carl's career with interest from then on, even though I spent most of my working life as a microbial geneticist and biochemist instead.

John H. Chalmers, Ph.D.

Sagan

A decade

Ten years. I remember that morning ten years ago when the clock radio woke me up by telling me Carl Sagan had died. It was local news; he was here, at the Hutch; we knew he was here, and why, and we exchanged worried gossip. I knew people who knew people who said things looked grim. Then I woke up to the radio that morning - I remember the fury, the no no no no, the damn and hell.

He's a sort of parent of B&W, Carl Sagan is. As is Dawkins. The two formed a kind of pair in my mind in the mid-90s, and I was oddly pleased to see what Dawkins said of Sagan in his tribute in Skeptical Inquirer:

My candidate for planetary ambassador, my own nominee to present our credentials in galactic chancelleries, can be none other than Carl Sagan himself. He is wise, humane, polymathic, gentle, witty, well-read, and incapable of composing a dull sentence"...I met him only once, so my feeling of desolation and loss at his death is based entirely on his writings. Carl Sagan was one of the great literary stylists of our age, and he did it by giving proper weight to the poetry of science. It is hard to think of anyone whom our planet can so ill afford to lose.

Just what I thought. Especially right now, we could and can ill afford to lose him. (Look how bad things have gotten since then! So you see what I mean. Never mind about correlation and causation; you know what I mean.)

It was The Demon-Haunted World, especially, that was a kind of parent of B&W. It got a lot of attention, and Sagan did a lot of interviews. I taped a couple of them, on 'Fresh Air' and 'Science Friday'; they were small educations in skepticism by themselves. The book and the interviews coincided with various encounters with New Agey people I kept stumbling into around that time, and the result was a heightened interest in pseudoscience and woolly thinking that has stuck to me like glue ever since. (Thus it is a little dizzying to see that Little Atoms is doing a special tribute broadcast this Friday with Ann Druyan and A C Grayling and several associates of Sagan's. I've been on Little Atoms, thinks I to myself. Full circle, kind of thing.)

A lot of people date the beginnings of their interest in science to a tv programme or book or magazine column of Carl Sagan's. He got a lot done in 62 years.

------------------------------
Ophelia Benson, Editor
Butterflies and Wheels
www.butterfliesandwheels.com
Demon Haunted World
-----------------------------

Remembering a Young Carl Sagan

In the fall of 1963 I was taking an astronomy course at Goddard College. One day the professor took me aside and said he'd arranged for an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Harvard named Carl Sagan to drive up to the campus and give a lecture on the solar system. Knowing of my long time interest in astronomy he asked if I'd show him around the campus and escort him to the dining room for dinner. I did and of course the lecture (a slide show with some of the best planetary photos of the time) was great. Mind you, at that time Dr. Sagan was a total unknown outside of the Astronomy Dept. at Harvard, and the big concern from my professor was how the college administration would feel about his spending $300 of his budget to pay for Dr. Sagan.

As Carl Sagan became better know, appearing on TV, publishing books and doing the Cosmos series, I'd drive a lot of my friends up the wall by exclaiming, "I know that guy!". And then telling the above tale. But I know it caused many of them to read his books. He is missed now more than ever.

- Chip

The Cosmic Clock

Hello fellow Saganites,

On this Carl Sagan commemoration day let me direct you to another wonderful web page entitled "The Cosmic Clock" part of the equally fantastic CosmicVoyage : Tribute to Carl Sagan and Cosmos.

The Cosmic Clock will help you to explore the birth and development of our cosmos. Spanning some 15 billion years, the clock highlights significant events that occurred along the history of the universe as described by modern cosmological theory.

This tour through time, although brief, is one in which all members of our civilization should be familiar.

After all, humans have endeavored to understand our beginnings for eons. Now, we are finally beginning to know!"!

Alex Michael Bonnici

ReAnimated.

Hello. My name is Andrew Lyman, I am a scientist who bungled his way into Art School instead. I maintain a number of blogs, but I made a post for Dr. Sagan on my Young Team Manager Blog today in honor of the 10th Anniversary of his death.

The image was made as a joke by me about the fact that I won the affection of my current girlfriend through (A) A ReAnimator T-shirt, and (B) Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Yes, she almost went home that fateful night, but when she asked what I my evening had in store, I did not lie, I
said: Probably just read, watch some more of Carl Sagan's Cosmos and go to bed. She was intrigued and has thus, stuck around for 9 months now (a purely factual and in no way symbolic amount of time).

But all that aside, Carl Sagan and Lewis Thomas were my two absolute role models. Darby Crash and Jello Biafra got thrown into the mix later and I ended up with a BFA in Experimental Animation, but the one common aspiration in my life has been that of the philosopher scientist. I can think of no nobler goal. All I hope is that there will be increasingly more and more kids growing up with role models like this.

All the best to all of you. Have the fun.

Joel Achenbach has blog-a-thon post in his Washington Post blog today. Check it out, it also links to a post he did on Sagan earlier this year. Here's what he posted today - his Style Section excerpt from December '96.

Carl Sagan warmed the universe.

His cosmos was not cold and dark and impenetrable. He believed the universe was surely filled with life, intelligent life, innumerable civilizations unseen. In his younger, dreamier days, he thought advanced extraterrestrials might know how to cruise the galaxies in ramjets -- spaceships with massive openings that scoop up hydrogen atoms from interstellar dust clouds and use them for fuel. In Sagan's crowded cosmos, even empty space wasn't empty.

He told The Washington Post earlier this year: "Organic matter, the stuff of life, is absolutely everywhere. Comets are made one-quarter of organic matter. Many worlds in the outer solar system are coated with dark organic matter. On Titan, organic matter is falling from the skies like manna from Heaven. The cold diffuse interstellar gas is loaded with organic matter. There doesn't seem to be an impediment about the stuff of life."

The world needed Sagan, who died yesterday of pneumonia at the age of 62. We have needed Sagan ever since Copernicus removed us from the center of the universe. It is a perplexing fact of human life that we live on a rock that orbits an ordinary star on the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy in a universe that is indescribably large. Sagan knew how to describe it, to convey our humble position without demeaning us. With Sagan we felt in the right place.

Sagan said, "Everybody starts out as a scientist." Every child has the scientist's sense of wonder and awe. Too often we beat it out of the kid. "The job of a science popularizer," Sagan said, "is to penetrate through the teachings that tell people they're too stupid to understand science."

Little Atoms Radio Show

We produce a radio show in the UK called Little Atoms. We have a special edition commemorating Carl Sagan this Friday 22nd December.

This is the listing for the show:

"The 20th December 2006 marks the tenth anniversary of the death of the astronomer, astrobiologist and populariser of science Carl Sagan. This program will explore aspects of the life, work and influence of Sagan, and includes a number of short interviews with Sagan's family, friends and former colleagues.

Contributors include Ann Druyan, Founder of the Carl Sagan Foundation and wife of Carl's for nearly 20 years until his death. Louis Friedman, co-founder with Sagan and current Executive Director of The Planetary Society, Steven Soter, Research Associate, Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and collaborator with Sagan on the Emmy award winning television series 'Cosmos: A Personal Journey', Carolyn Porco, Senior Research Scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, an Adjunct Professor in the Department of
Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, member of the Imaging team on the Voyager missions, and leader of the Cassini-Huygens imaging team, and A.C. Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, Rationalist, skeptic and Little Atoms favorite".

The show is an hour long, and is broadcast between 4:30pm and 5:30pm UK time. It will also be available to download from our website Friday morning (UK time again).

Ann Druyan and I talk briefly about the blog-a-thon on the show.

best wishes,

Neil Denny

website: http://www.littleatoms.com
blog: http://little-atoms.blogspot.com/

Carl Sagan ten years on - Contact film/book differences

Huge props to Carl Sagan, my parents, sisters, and my bro-in-law Dale for turning me on to science and critical thought back when I was a wee lad with an even worse haircut. A "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" cosmos is a wondrous and bewildering enough thing without going over the edge and looking for the invisible man in the sky.

I always found it interesting that they changed the ending of the movie Contact to diverge from the book. I wonder what Ann Druyan was thinking when she signed off on this or if Carl was aware of it too.

In the movie it seems that Ellie Arroway is made to accept that faith is the only thing that will vindicate her. She comes back from her journey to the aliens with absolutely no solid evidence. "Hope you believe me 'cuz I got nothing here. Bupkiss. Not even a t-shirt."

In the book she is given inside information about the creation of the universe and uses a supercomputer to prove the existence of a universal designer. Science and faith are united in a way that even an atheist like myself found very satisfying and imaginative.

Ken

Missing Carl Sagan

Bonnie-Ann Black writes:

I realized back in august, just before attending WorldCon, that Carl Sagan had been gone an incredible 10 years. I did several art pieces to sell at the convention, some of them prints, and they did sell fairly well. In tribute to the man and his work, I'm participating in the blog-a-thon on my website: www.dubhsidhestudios.com.

My Meager Contribution.

i'm the offspring of scientists - my mother, an astronomer; my father, an electrical engineer for NASA. it was only natural that we eagerly gathered around the TV to watch the latest installment of cosmos.

carl sagan was a fond influence on my geekery. while i'm a graphic designer currently, i will always be obsessed with this vast universe, thanks to my parents and carl sagan. and now, i make a point to pass this obsession along to my son:

thanks for the blog, and thanks for bringing back memories.

sincerely,

batty

Arrogancia Sin Fundemento

(En memoria de Carl Sagan)

En uno de sus interesantes libros de divulgación científica --LOS DRAGONES DEL EDÉN— el astrónomo Carl Sagan nos ofrece una figura para concebir adecuadamente nuestro “puesto” en la vida del universo:

“Para expresar la cronología cósmica nada más sugerente que comprimir los quince mil millones de años de vida que se asignan al universo (o, por lo menos, a su conformación actual desde que acaeciera el Big Bang) al intervalo de un solo año. Si tal hacemos, cada mil millones de años de la historia terrestre equivaldrían a unos veinticuatro días de este hipotético año cósmico, y un segundo del mismo correspondería a 475 revoluciones efectivas de la Tierra alrededor del sol”.

En esta imagen, el Big Bang (la “gran explosión” inicial) ocurre el 1 de enero; el origen de la galaxia de la Vía Láctea, el 1 de mayo; el origen del sistema solar, el 9 de septiembre; la formación de la Tierra, el 14 de septiembre; el origen de la vida en la Tierra, aproximadamente el 25 de septiembre; la formación de las rocas más antiguas conocidas, el 2 de octubre; la época de los fósiles más antiguos, el 9 de octubre. Los dinosaurios hacen su aparición en Nochebuena.

En toda esta evolución el ser humano no hace acto de presencia hasta las 22:30 horas de la víspera de Año Nuevo. La historia escrita ocupa los últimos 10 segundos del 31 de diciembre, y el espacio transcurrido desde el ocaso de la Edad Media hasta la época en que vivimos es de poco más de un segundo.

¿No es para pensarlo profundamente? A la vista de lo casi nada que somos los seres humanos en un mundo antiquísimo, no queda más que reconocer que debemos inclinarnos por la humildad. ¡Qué ridícula resulta nuestra soberbia manifestada cuando nos dedicamos a acumular bienes materiales, descuidando la relación con nuestros seres queridos; cuando ávidos de dominar y conseguir poder despreciamos y pisoteamos a nuestros semejantes; cuando nos dejamos vencer por los prejuicios y rechazamos a quienes tienen otra manera de comportarse; cuando nos creemos poseedores de la verdad absoluta y no toleramos a quienes piensan de modo diferente; cuando por ganar dinero destruimos el mundo sin tomar en cuenta que nos fue dado en préstamo por nuestros descendientes; cuando predicando falsos Absolutos e idolatrando dioses por nosotros mismos inventados decretamos identidades impuras y nos dedicamos a la caza de brujas; cuando nos convertimos en señores de la guerra y abrimos las puertas al terror, la violencia y el fanatismo!

El calendario cósmico de Sagan nos enseña que no hay fundamento para nuestra arrogancia. Es hora de preocuparnos de veras por cómo estamos haciendo las cosas.

Rogelio Rodríguez Muñoz

Memories of Carl Sagan

More than twenty years ago, I took my son to hear a public address by Carl Sagan in Portland Oregon. I was, as ever, amazed by the man' ability to make science so interesting, so exciting, so full of adventure. Even more, I was so entertained by his artful and witty use of words--a talent more common among actors and poets than scientists.

During questions and answers, a man stood to ask what Dr. Sagan thought of some quite flaky theory of alien influences among us. Dr. Sagan very gently and with dignity began with something like, "Well, you have, quite innocently I'm sure, fallen under the influence of some very ignorant people." If only more of us could confront ignorance so firmly while respecting the dignity of those who have lost their way. Oh, how I'd love to hear his response to today's events.

Steve Thompson,
Springboro, Ohio

More Blog-a-thon Posts

We've been getting lots of emails linking to people's blog-a-thon posts, and it's hard to choose excerpts, so here's a small collection of links we've received:

On MySpace, from Lisa.
Random Precision, In Portugal from Luis.
The Bretorium in Massassachusetts.
Larry Klaes' Ithaca Times article.
Anonymous Dave's blog-a-thon post.
Kevin Jung's humble attempt at memorial.
Bret at bretorium.com.

Blog-a-thon Post

river2sea72 writes:
I have huge respect and admiration for popularizers of science, and Carl Sagan was one of the premier examples of such a person. Although they risk their reputations immenseley by reaching out to the public and taking on controversial issues, they inspire unknown multitudes of children to pursue careers in science or at least to appreciate its role in society.

Who will do for my child what this man did for me? There remains a huge void.

NY Times Obit

From the New York Times obituary, by William Dicke, first published on December 21st, 1996:

A persistent theme in his work was one practically guaranteed to capture public interest: the possibility that life exists elsewhere in the universe. He became an expert on the subject at a time when it was considered highly speculative, and prodded other scientists to consider it seriously. Civilized life must be common in the universe, he said, because stars are so abundant and the Sun is a fairly typical star.

Dr. Sagan (pronounced SAY-gun) was probably best known as the host of ''Cosmos,'' a 13-part series on public television in 1980 that explored everything from the world of the atom to the vastness of the universe, and showed him looking awestruck as he contemplated the heavens. With an audience of 400 million people in 60 countries, it was considered the most widely viewed short-term public television series in history until it was eclipsed in 1990 by a series on the Civil War.

He received critical acclaim as well as substantial financial awards for the series, which made him an international celebrity. The book he wrote to accompany it, also called ''Cosmos,'' was on the best-seller list for more than a year, and a company he formed, Carl Sagan Productions, promoted such things as ''The Music of the Cosmos'' with RCA Records.

Dr. Sagan was also familiar to television viewers from 26 appearances in the 1970's and 80's on ''The Tonight Show'' with Johnny Carson, who was known to don a black wig and perform a Sagan impersonation. He and other comics delighted in parodying Dr. Sagan's references to ''billions and billions'' of stars in the universe.

In an interview in 1977, Dr. Sagan said he turned down several hundred requests to give lectures every year but always tried to accept invitations to appear on ''The Tonight Show.''

''The show has an audience of 10 million people,'' he said. ''That's an awful lot of people, and those aren't people who subscribe to Scientific American.''

Defending his activities in popularizing science, Dr. Sagan said in another interview: ''There are at least two reasons why scientists have an obligation to explain what science is all about. One is naked self-interest. Much of the funding for science comes from the public, and the public has a right to know how their money is being spent. If we scientists increase the public excitement about science, there is a good chance of having more public supporters. The other is that it's tremendously exciting to communicate your own excitement to others.''

While his leap from the scientific ivory tower into the television studio may have irritated some of his colleagues, there can be no doubt that Dr. Sagan was a serious and productive scientist.

Gracias

Gracias, eso es lo que me gustaria poder decirle al Sr. Sagan si pudiera hablar con el, GRACIAS por su manera de explicar, por hacer que la ciencia parezca un juego y hacerla tan interesante y atractiva.

A partir de Cosmos para mi fue una nueva etapa, con mi padre, madre y hermana menor nos sentabamos a ver cada episodio de Cosmos y realmente quedabamos atrapados por su magnetismo. Luego lei todos sus libros y tenia la sensacion de que lo conocia, de hecho cuando el Sr. Sagan murio senti un gran dolor, fue la primera y unica vez que senti la perdida de una persona que nunca habia conocido como si fuera un familiar cercano.
Realmente se fue un GRANDE con todas las letras.

ESpero que desde donde este, seguramente en ese infinito que el tambien sabia describir, nos este mirando y se ponga contento por este tributo que todos los que lo admiramos en el mundo le estamos dedicando.

Gracias

Marcelo Suarez

A Love Affair & A Thank You

Well, today is the day. Not only does today mark the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing and the beginning of a new moon, it is the day that a certain someone returns from overseas and into my arms. Dr. Sagan is partly responsible for this lasting love affair of mine, and after thinking all week about what to write today for the blog-a-thon, this seems appropriate.

Cosmos first aired a year before I was born, and so I didn't come to know Carl's face until college, when my dear friend and roommate began borrowing the series from the public library on VHS. At this point, I had a couple of the doctor's books under my belt and an amateur passion about science. My introduction to the Cosmos television series coincided with the beginning of a relationship with a certain young lady, and those late nights on the living room couch - the VCR humming, Vangelis swirling about us, and Carl's entrancing enunciation - helped to seal a bond which continues to grow after four years. Dr. Sagan helped us share the wonder of existence with each other, and for this (among countless other things) I am immensely grateful to him.

Nine days ago, while daydreaming in my cubicle and chatting with Bryan H., we decided to start celebratingsagan.com in order to commemorate this important man's passing. I can't express what a fulfilling project it's been. I want to thank everyone who has contributed; I share your sentiments whole-heartedly. I also want to give a special thanks to Joel for conceiving of today's blog-a-thon, to Nick Sagan for helping to spread the word, to boingboing for their post yesterday (surely the biggest reason we've been getting so many hits), and to Ann Druyan for her encouragement.

Carl articulated something that no other scientist has managed to do. All chemistry and physics aside, WE ARE STAR STUFF. The fact of that sentence still gives me a profound sense of security. It is a timeless four word poem for all of humanity. For an atheist like myself (albeit a reluctant one some days), reading and rereading Carl's words are akin to prayer. Feeling small, it seems to me, is the beginning of understanding the truth about who and what we are. We are star stuff. We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.

Thank you, Carl.

Falling Hard for Sagan.

Lauren at Liquid Logic sent us a link to her blog-a-thon entry, and we just couldn't help but excerpting this passage:

I remember liking him and finding his stuff cool. But it was later in life, in my late twenties, in fact, that I fell hard for the guy. I’m not sure if it was The Demon Haunted World or The Dragons of Eden that hooked me. But I do know that it had something to do with his rigorous devotion to truth and his improbable optimism about human nature.

Please read the whole entry here.

Celebrating Sagan

I was approximately 4 years old. I sat in front of my family's first hard-earned TV and I looked at that man alone in that incredible and huge spaceship travelling through a black hole and listening at the same time to "Heaven and Hell part I". My eyes stopped blinking and I was changed forever.

He opened my mind, taught me about questioning every aspect of life and specially myself, always from a higher perspective and showed me that my very existence was just a humble "pale blue dot" in a huge place, so huge that "if it's just only us, what an awful waste of space it is!"

Pure thanks. No words.

Hernán.

Sagan through Father.

Mary came to know Carl Sagan through her father. Her blog-a-thon post includes this paragraph:

There is no way for me to think about Carl Sagan without thinking of my father. My dad, he of the constant impersonations, loved to impersonate Carl Sagan. Particularly the way he used to say "billions and billions" and "star stuff". As kids, we found this very amusing and so we bought my dad the book, Cosmos. I remember spending a summer vacation entranced with the book. Both of these men sparked in me a love and respect for science and impressed on me of the importance of independent and critical thinking.

Please check out the rest of her post at Mostly Dogs.

In Memoriam.

It's sad to see that in this "Demon-Haunted World" where creationism is touted as a serious alternative "theory" for Kansas schoolchildren, that our great voice of rationalism and inquiry, Dr. Sagan, is no longer with us to fight the good fight.

His pleas for international peace and the futility of missile defense systems fall on deaf ears in Washington, at least until January 20th, 2009.

Hopefully, we will discover some extraterrestrial life in the next few decades and name it in honor of Carl.

John W.

Honoring Carl.

From Ann.

Celebrating Sagan thanks Ann Druyan who wrote to share her appreciation for our memories-made-public.

She also included a link to the China Youth Daily, a Chinese national paper. The article is called, 'Carl Sagan's Legacy.'

On behalf of the readers, Ann, we thank you for cultivating the flame.

Agradecimiento

Los espectadores de habla hispana también disfrutamos de su serie Cosmos y de sus libros traducidos a nuestro idioma, por ello me permito enviar mi recuerdo al hombre que nos abrió la puerta a la astronomía en nuestro idioma nativo.

De su mano aprendimos sobre los misterios del universo y que las ciencia no necesariamente debe ser para unas pocas mentes elegidas, él nos enseño que las ciencias son para toda la humanidad, para cada ser viviente, se tomó el trabajo de explicarnos de manera sencilla muchos de los postulados científicos de la época, siempre creyó que podíamos entender si se nos explicaba de manera suficientemente sencilla y el hecho de que a 10 años de que nos dejara sin su presencia física miles de personas en casi todas partes del mundo lo recuerden y lo veneren.

Ojala hubiera muchos como él, aunque siempre creí que era un ser único y lamentablemente irrepetible.

Vaya este recuerdo de parte de alguien que creció de la mano de Carl en el interés por las ciencias.

Carl aún vive en nuestras mentes y en nuestros corazones y su legado alcanzara a nuestros hijos y nuestros nietos.

"Moriré el día que muera el último de mis amigos" J. L. Borges.

Tomate©
q=)

From Malaysia

Embiggened! in Malaysia writes:

There is much to ponder from what he has left us - and perhaps most important is how precious our lives and our planet is. Though no longer with us on this Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan’s legacy will forever live on in the hearts and minds of those who love and cherish knowledge.

Sexy Science

OM's post for today include's this insight, and yes he has a caveat on the origins of 'Billions and Billions':

If anything, it was Cosmos which permanently ensconced Carl as a major part of 20th Century Pop culture, as it gave Astronomy - and Science in general, for that matter - it's first high-tech embellishing. For thirteen episodes, Carl produced what has been argued as the first "ratings hit" PBS had aired that wasn't something like Sesame Street. He aimed not so much for adults as the target audience, but simply for those with intelligence and the will to expand the bounds of their knowledge and imagination. His catchphrase of "Billions and Billions"(*), combined with his uniquely nasal Brooklyn accent, became so ingrained in American culture to have the same instant recognition status as E=MC2,

Or, to put it a bit more directly, Carl made science "sexy".

Chech out the whole OM thing, here.

Carl Sagan, Ten Years After

Kurt at the Celestial Monochord sent us these thoughts. Please read his whole Sagan statement here.

By an astounding coincidence — divine intervention? — Carl Sagan's Cosmos debuted on public television exactly one week after my 16th birthday. The series turned out to be a 13-hour, carefully reasoned, gorgeously dramatized argument. The claim this long argument sought to establish precisely addressed the very question with which I'd been grappling.

Cosmos argues that the universe is profoundly beautiful, meaningful, and demands an ethical response, even when it's explained without The Divine. Sagan argued that, faced with the revelations of 20th century science and the dangers of 20th century technology, the only ethical response is to see the world as it is and not how we wish it were.

Everything I Needed to Know About Life...

Everything I needed to know about life, I learned from Carl Sagan.

When I was only ten years old, "Cosmos" began on PBS. I met my hero once a week and he told me that there was so very much more to life than I knew. He told me that life was precious and that if we were not careful, it could all slip away. He told me things that the people who run the world have yet to learn or implement. I became a student of his works and have tried to make a difference in this world. Carl Sagan is my hero.

Miles

Carl Sagan

The following excertp is from Dean W. Armstrong's look at Dr. Sagan's roll as an astronomer at the University of Chicago. 

He was a student here at Chicago; he was, as the picture indicates, president of the University of Chicago Astronomical Society (now known as the Ryerson Astronomical Society). After his short stay in the college he went to the Astronomy department and left a Ph.D.

I often wonder what the dismal atmosphere of a coal-smoked Chicago was like for astronomy in the early fifties--and whether the old cranky telescope (fifty-two years old then, in 1952) did anything to inspire future thoughts. His logs are short, and there never seemed to be much observing or possibility of observing. See here for a scan of a sample logbook page. Or here for the entire text of the 1952-1964 logbook.

Billions and Billions of Inspirations

As a young child I wasn’t encouraged to watch too much television, but “Cosmos” was one exception to the weeknight homework rule. One night a week my brother and I sat together on a couch in Rhode Island to marvel at the possibilities of outer space as presented by a certain turtlenecked professor. If the universe was as big as he imagined, then surely life existed in other places and it was merely a matter of time before we connected with that life. In years when my daydreams ran wildly with the childhood pictures of nuclear winter and nightmares of being the Only One Left, Sagan’s fears were the same… but his questions, worded as only he could pronounce them, sparked in me thoughts of friendly Others, shared technology that would lead to a cure for cancer, and cosmic peace summits and universal treaties.

He made science fun and accessible, his enthusiasm was contagious, he was cool. Around that time (1979?) I wrote a journal entry proclaiming that I would go to Cornell and study with Sagan and plan a Mars mission. Well, I’d realize only a teency bit of that dream… but wouldn’t you know Sagan’s own student Steve Squyres WOULD lead the mission to Mars.

Jennifer at jenimi sent along this excellent picture and testimonial. For more please read here.

the 20th.

I wake up reluctantly today, exhausted. It has been a busy few weeks and today will be no exception. Wednesday December 20th will be a day of deadlines, and developments, and manically checking the email, and posting comments, and dinners and more deadlines.

This last week my life has been consumed by Carl Sagan. Falling asleep posts are on my mind, and waking up it is images from the internet. Turtleneck and stars.

Over the past week we have received many excellent submissions that praise Sagan's contributions--on the (inter)national and personal scale--as a hero, roll model, inspiration, great mind, and communicator.

It is no surprise then, that with Sagan on my mind, I find myself wondering as I grind the morning's coffee, "Did Carl drink coffee? Does he like bananas?."

Perhaps Carl was more of a tea man, and oatmeal was his favorite breakfast. Peanut butter and jelly? Did he like pizza? Surely no soda. Beer? Bourbon or Scotch? Mint chocolate chip?

The funny thing about Carl Sagan, and I say this after reading and moderating many testimonials about the man, is that even though he was a public figure, the nation's face of science, many of the people reacting to the 10th anniversary of his death are reacting in a very personal way. We all feel like we knew the good doctor. So it is strange for me to be chest deep in memories about this man while knowing so little about who he was, and how he lived his day to day.

Perhaps this speaks to his greatest accomplishment. More than being a great scientist and mind, Carl Sagan was a man who had an uncanny ability to connect individuals to great ideas, and as we are seeing now, individuals to individuals. Through this relative understanding of the universe, Carl helped us find a place in which we belong.

Thank you Dr. Sagan, we want to be your friend.

Carl Sagan Died Today.