Happy Birthday Carl

All that we have seen is something of a vast and intricate and lovely universe. There is no particular theological conclusion that comes out of an exercise such as the one we have just gone through. What is more, when we understand something of the astronomical dynamics, the evolution of worlds, we recognize that worlds are born and worlds die, they have lifetimes just as humans do, and therefore that there is a great deal of suffering and death in the cosmos is a great deal of life.

-- Dr. Carl Sagan. 'The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God.' Edited by Ann Druyan from the 1985 Gifford Lectures. Published in 2006.

Solstice

Dr. Sagan on the solstice.

Sagan and Reagan

Over at the ScienceBlog Framing Science, Matthew Nisbet wrote about two men that he considers to be the top communicators of the 1980s, President Reagan and Dr. Sagan:

In the years before cable television fragmented Americans into ever smaller viewership groups, both men took advantage of the broadcast television networks to communicate directly to a mass audience. Reagan would make speeches during prime time from the Oval Office such as his 1983 call to scientists to develop the Strategic Defense Initiative. "I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete," declared Reagan.

And before The Daily Show or The Colbert Report turned late night comedy into platforms for scientists such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sagan would appear as a regular on Johnny Carson reaching tens of millions of viewers. The astronomer was so familiar to American audiences that Carson would even affectionately impersonate Sagan in skits.

Follow through to the original post for video.

Planetary Imagery: 30 Years From Voyager Spacecraft

Wired has a gallery of Voyager photos up today that includes some Sagan material. There are some truly wonderful shots that I had never seen before.

Here's two that include mention of Dr. Sagan:

SOUNDS OF EARTH

Voyager project manager John Casani displays the "Sounds of Earth" recording shortly before launch in 1977. The 12-inch gold-plated copper phonograph record was intended to serve as a time capsule that could communicate the story of Earth to extraterrestrials.

A NASA committee, chaired by renowned physicist Carl Sagan, assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds made by surf, wind, thunder, birds, whales and other animals. They also embedded musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings in 55 languages. Encased in protective aluminum jackets, each record had its own cartridge and a needle. Instructions written in symbols explained the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record was to be played

CARL SAGAN, INTO THE COSMOS

Famed astronomer Carl Sagan served as a spokesman for the Voyager spacecraft. Here, Sagan discusses the Voyager 2 in the Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena, California on January 18th, 1986.

Carl Sagan Gathering article in this week's Ithaca Times

Larry Klaes wrote an article about the Sagan Gathering for the Ithaca Times this week. Check it out here or just read on below.

A Organizational Voyage

By Larry Klaes

Cornell University professor and world-renowned astronomer and scientist Carl Sagan unquestionably is one of Ithaca's most well-known former residents, having lived in this town from his arrival to teach at the university in 1968 until his death from myelodysplasia in late 1996.

As a scientist and educator, Sagan brought the wonders of the universe to millions of people through his writings and other works for decades. He also worked tirelessly with his wife, Ann Druyan, the CEO of Cosmos Studios, to support, promote, and debate the most pressing social issues of his time, many of which are still with us today.

When Patrick Fish was in the eighth grade, he watched Sagan's landmark Cosmos television series on PBS when it premiered in 1980. Fish found Sagan to be an "island of sanity" in his world.

Fish's sense of wonder and admiration for Sagan only grew during the years, even as his life took him in several different directions. Last January, Fish learned about the blog-a-thon that took place across the Internet, honoring Sagan on Dec. 20, the 10th anniversary of his death. The online celebration inspired the Utica resident to become familiar with his boyhood hero again.

"I read a lot about and by Carl that was online," said Fish. "I became reacquainted with Sagan and his ideas, such as his studies of the greenhouse effect that makes the planet Venus so hot and its relationship to our understanding of global warming on Earth. I also admired how Sagan used his research into the concept of nuclear winter to play a role in pressuring the United States and Soviet Union to give up on the idea that a thermonuclear attack could be winnable for either side during the Cold War. Sagan was a scientist who did not lose his humane ethic."

A recent visit to Sagan's resting place at Lakeview Cemetery, where Fish was struck by the "humbleness" of the late astronomer's grave marker and several articles about the man resting at the site, led him to begin solidifying the idea of a permanent tribute to Sagan in his longtime residence.

"At first I thought getting this idea rolling would be difficult," explained Fish. "However, I found only goodwill towards Sagan and his memory in Ithaca."

Fish's initial plan involves the upcoming Ithaca Festival Parade on May 31. He plans to have a car-float in the parade that reflects on some of the major themes and events of Sagan's life.

"My plan is to have a model of the twin Voyager space probes that explored the outer Solar System in the 1970s and 1980s. I would like to have the hubcaps on each of my car's tires covered with a replica of the golden Interstellar Record placed aboard each Voyager probe," said Fish. The golden records contain images, messages, and music from humanity to anyone who finds those robot craft drifting through space in the distant future.

Other items for the Sagan parade float include a rendition of the plaque placed aboard two other earlier space probes named Pioneer 10 and 11 and a model of the Cosmos 1 solar sail craft, which did not achieve Earth orbit when its launch rocket failed in 2005.

Fish also hopes to use his parade float for the promotion and growth of the Sagan Appreciation Society (SAS), which he describes as "an ad hoc group of science-minded folk, skeptics, humanists, environmentalists, peaceniks, Sagan fanboys and girls, etc."

"The participation in the parade will be the first public act of the SAS," stated Fish. "The warm reaction to the idea of a Sagan parade-float lead to expanding the concept beyond just a parade entry and into a Sagan Gathering that will overlap and hopefully cross-pollinate with the Ithaca Festival. Up until this point, we've had no media exposure and no outreach campaign yet, and already we have commitments from as far away as Indiana. But what we need are more Ithaca-area people to get involved in the planning process."

Fish is also looking for people who knew Carl Sagan who would like to talk and share their stories about Sagan, perhaps as part of a series of panel discussions. "Men like Sagan motivate people. Those who knew him can really energize the public to deal with issues Sagan brought up that still go on today." Fish, who would ultimately like to see a Carl Sagan statue standing in Ithaca Commons, mirrored one of his mentor's concerns that have only compounded with time.

"Our culture has become more reliant on science and technology than ever before, but we are understanding it less and less, such as genetically modified foods. Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan brought an artful way for a passionate expression of science. They were definitely in love with science, which not everyone appreciates or understands, but it is critical to the survival of our species and every other species on Earth."

To participate in the Sagan Appreciation Society and the Ithaca Festival parade float, contact Patrick Fish at this e-mail address: SaganGathering@yahoo.com.

- Larry Klaes

Sagan Brigade at Ithaca Festival

Pat recently wrote to us to ask for help in putting together a Sagan Brigade for the Ithaca Festival Parade which takes place in early June. The parade form deadline is March 17th, so if your interested in participating please email Pat ASAP at SaganGathering@yahoo.com, or help spread the word. Here's a bit of what Pat has in mind:

It would be an opportunity for an uninhibited Sagan fellowship, a celebration of the man in the small city he called home. It would be a good opportunity to remind people of Sagan's continuing impact as well as a lighthearted way to put a public face on secularism, humanism, evolution, freethought, critical thinking, ethical science, skepticism, and yes, non-theism.

Again, email Pat ASAP at SaganGathering@yahoo.com if you're interested in celebrating Sagan at this summer's Ithaca Festival.

Cosmic Calendar

In response to the Cosmic Clock post, Larry Klaes wrote to remind of us of Carl's Cosmic Calendar:

Beyond Belief

Before my long holiday train ride, I took the time to download the recent Beyond Belief sessions to watch during the trip. (One of the few bonuses of riding Amtrak is outlets.) This is hardy stuff that would've made Carl Sagan proud - the meat and potatoes of existence. If you haven't already, you simply must check it out. I recommend session 2.

If you're unfamiliar with the project, here's their website's description:

Just 40 years after a famous TIME magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" the answer appears to be a resounding "No!" According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, "God is Winning". Religions are increasingly a geopolitical force to be reckoned with. Fundamentalist movements - some violent in the extreme - are growing. Science and religion are at odds in the classrooms and courtrooms. And a return to religious values is widely touted as an antidote to the alleged decline in public morality. After two centuries, could this be twilight for the Enlightenment project and the beginning of a new age of unreason? Will faith and dogma trump rational inquiry, or will it be possible to reconcile religious and scientific worldviews? Can evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience help us to better understand how we construct beliefs, and experience empathy, fear and awe? Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? Can we treat religion as a natural phenomenon? Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what?

This is a critical moment in the human situation, and The Science Network in association with the Crick-Jacobs Center brought together an extraordinary group of scientists and philosophers to explore answers to these questions. The conversation took place at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA from November 5-7, 2006.

Ann Druyan gave a particularly moving presentation. Here it is in three parts:

Three Bedrooms – A Tribute to Carl Sagan

Scott Thompson emailed us the link to his blog-a-thon post, which is a worthwhile read. Here's a excerpt:

When I was a young teen in 1980 there were three televisions in the house: One was in the small family room, and was typically shared by my parents. Another was in their bedroom - used primarily by my father to watch Kansas City Chiefs football games on crisp fall weekends. In my own inner sanctum - my bedroom, I had a little 13-inch GE black-and-white set, which I mostly used for watching PBS and Star Trek. It was on my little television that I learned about the coming premiere of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

Cosmos so intrigued me that I was motivated to leave the electronics and Lego and book-strewn confines of my own bedroom in search of a color television. I knew I needed to see stars and galaxies, nebulae and molecules in vivid color. I persuaded my parents to let me use their bedroom color television to watch the series, no small task given their dubious view of science-fiction, their abhorrence of evolution and general mystification regarding science. I eventually won the argument with assurances of the series’ educational value and reassurance of “non-sinful” content. Every week, I’d find myself plopped on my parents white king-sized comforter, propped-chin-in-hands, waiting for the next astonishing (my favorite Cosmos word) installment to propel my mind far from my pedestrian Ozarks home.

Sagan's Rationale for Human Spaceflight

Alex Michael Bonnici brings to our attention an article in The Space Review called Sagan's rationale for human spaceflight by Michael Huang. Here's a short excerpt:

In medieval times, some people kept a human skull in their home to remind themselves of mortality, and to view their priorities against the big picture of life and death. A modern equivalent is the dinosaur fossil. The fossilized remains of a once great and dominant species reminds the human species of our eventual choice: survival or extinction, or as Sagan put it, “spaceflight or extinction”.

It's a quick and interesting read and a great launch point for discussing our future in space. Thanks, Alex.

Carl Sagan, gone for "ten trips around the Sun"

Tom Moore emailed us with the link to his blog-a-thon post. Here it is in full:

Carl Sagan was one of the strongest and most enduring influences on my choice to pursue teaching and then science. His view of humans as "a way for the universe to know itself" echoed and extended themes I'd read in Alan Watts. Carl's many books and shorter articles guided and inspired me up through his untimely death. They shaped my interests and led me to specialize in the science of the solar system. Many were critical of what they saw as Carl's excessive participation in the cult of personality through the media. But from my perspective, Carl was the ultimate modern renaissance man, with interests that spanned the universe in a way that few others came close to expressing. He excelled not only in communicating the excitement of science to the general public, but also led a generation of scientists in seeing the broader relevance and impact of their work, helping us to get beyond the mentality of the cold war. He is deeply missed.

There is a detectable web competition for the title of "Next Carl Sagan". It's a very tough act to follow on the world stage. But we do need others to tell us how wonderful is the world as revealed by science, how little we really need our illusions and superstitions, and how much more sound is a simple reverence for life and all the forces that have created it.

- Tom Moore

Nick's Memories

Nick Sagan wrote an outstanding post yesterday - if you haven't read it, you ought to. From Carl's dictaphone habits to his distate for Beavis & Butthead and the movie Aliens, Nick lets us in on a little secret; his father was, it's true, a human being.

Sagan was so clearly a hero to countless people across the globe, and for those of us who can't help but do a bit of worshiping, Nick's portrait helps ground that awe without diminishing our hero's stature. Here's a choice picture and excerpt:

He had a knack for pinball, knowing just how hard to bump a machine without tilting it. We'd go to arcades together and he'd win bonus games like mad. Videogames were never his thing, though he could appreciate the better ones. I remember the day I showed him Computer Baseball, a strategy game for the Apple IIe. You could pit some of the greatest teams in MLB history against each other. We played Babe Ruth's 1927 Yankees against Jackie Robinson's 1955 Dodgers for about an hour, and then he turned to me and said, "Never show this to me again. I like it too much, and I don't want to lose time. Link.

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."

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.

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.

Honoring Carl.

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.

The Bean Mines.

Subspace McFillicutty over at The Bean Mines posted an excellent Sagan tribute.

Here is an excerpt:

Generally speaking, I'm pretty opposed to marking a death anniversary. This is something that came about as I worked at a tattoo shop and people ritualistically attempted to immortalize a loved one by having either their death date or an image of death (i.e., an angel) marked into their skin for all their conscious eternity. I spent years around this well-meaning but misguided tradition, so I feel qualified to criticize it...

Right now I am looking down at my arm, which is completely sleeved in a random science-fiction/space theme, and which I started about ten years ago. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I felt Carl Sagan was somewhat responsible for my having these tattoos. Are they a memorial tattoo? No, and yes a little.

When my dad told me that Carl Sagan had finally passed away after two years of fighting a painful disease, I quietly lost it. Like people worldwide I felt he'd spoken to me -- he had been a voice, both literal and metaphorical, of the cosmos, a champion for the utterly ignored and completely spectacular universe around us. I have clear memories of being hunkered up to the television absorbing the concepts of the Doppler effect without even trying to. I opened up my tiny, spongy and nearly blank brain to him to fill, and with grace and wit he complied.

Please read the rest at The Bean Mines.

"Impossible for God"

Richard took the initiative to bring to life an idea that Sagan wrote about in Contact. He quotes an excerpt in which the protagonist, Arroway, has found a message of sorts in binary.

To quote Richard:

The implication is that somehow the universe was designed with the transcendental value of pi so arranged that its digits were graphical as well as numerical. I was reading several comments about this in other blogs and one stated that actually constructing a universe and controlling the value of pi is "impossible for God." Without debating that question, I submit that if one searches long and hard enough, one will, indeed, find the "message" in the digits of pi. Consider: As far as anyone knows, pi is random and infinite. Should that not mean that any pattern, including the one above, will eventually appear?

To read the entire entry, visit RikLBlog.