Letter to Carl Sagan

I came across a post yesterday which I wanted to call attention to. It's a perfect example of how Dr. Sagan inspired people to pursue science professionally. Who knows how many careers out there were spurred on by Carl's charisma and passion. Here's an excerpt from My Letter to Carl Sagan by Dr. Mark S. Petrovic:

Sometime in the mid 70s while I was in secondary school, I determined that I should write to Dr. Sagan and ask him what should be my approach if I wanted to become an astronomer, which was my goal at the time. How I found his Cornell address is slightly mysterious, as this was pre-Internet, pre-cable, and, even, pre-microwave oven. My guess is that I found it at the library. Ithaca can’t be that big, in hindsight, and he was likely one of the most well-known people in town. Nothing more than “Prof. Carl Sagan, Ithaca, NY” probably would have worked on the envelope.

So I wrote my letter, and lo, some weeks, later, a reply came. Carl Sagan had personally taken the time to respond to my inquiry. I am still honored, and humbled, by this. And I have that letter in my files, along with a signed photo of him. Therein he suggested that if I wanted to study the stars, I should take a course of study consisting of math and physics. Which I did.

Originally published to the author's blog, radioAe6rt, on December 16, 2006.

When Carl Sagan Died, an Encore.

I was a geology major in college, and probably would have majored in astronomy had my college offered it. I also did graduate work in planetariums, and almost made that a career, but in the end, music won out.

Carl was a light in the darkness for me as he was for so many.

I wrote the song after seeing Ann Druyan interviewed on Charlie Rose. This was just after Contact had come out, and shortly after he had died. Charlie and Ann were talking about Carl and the movie, and her sadness was palpable. I could see on her face how deeply she missed him. My heart went out to her and I wanted to offer her some kind of comfort.

From their writings, I knew how they both felt about life after death (not likely!), but I thought, why not at least be open to the idea? So that's where the song comes from.

Thanks again, and great job on the site. I'll spread the word in my newsletter.

Injoy,

Greg

WHEN CARL SAGAN DIED
by Greg Tamblyn

When Carl Sagan died I felt surprising sadness
For someone I’d admired from afar
I found that he’d inspired me to think in new dimensions
And I shared his sense of wonder at the stars

I saw him first in college, late night on Johnny Carson
His enthusiasm was contagious
I thought he had a great mind and I loved his sense of humor
And Cosmos was a show for all the ages

Now I am trained in science too, a geology degree
I love astronomical ideas
When time and space are measured in billions and billions
And I can’t pass up a good science museum

I saw his wife Ann Druyan on TV, she seemed so sad
They both felt death is final and forever
It must be so difficult living while believing
They’ll never ever once more be together

I also felt God and the afterlife an empty notion
Till I read the words of mystics down through time
Their accounts of higher consciousness were somehow familiar
And lifted me to thoughts new and sublime

Like this notion that the impulse of creation springs from love
Is it only wishful thinking on my part
That you and I are waves that will return to some great ocean
And while here we are connected at the heart

So nowadays I’m thinking that it’s possible, it could be
That consciousness lives on in unknown ways
Maybe we move on to higher planes and new existence
Or even live again with some new face

So I want to tell his wife Ann I wish I could give her comfort
I think Carl’s spirit still lives on
Oh wouldn’t it be something if when her time here is over
There was Carl saying, “Hi Hon, I was wrong”

© 1999 Ramblin’ Tamblyn Music, BMI

To read more about Greg and his music please visit his website www.gregtamblyn.com.

You can listen to this song in the Sounds of Sagan, or you can purchase the CD here.

Sagan Memorial Station.

After landing on Mars on July 4, 1997, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft underwent a name change. Responsible for bringing the robot rover, Sojourner, to the red planet, the now stationary Pathfinder would heretofore be called the Sagan Memorial Station. Serving as a hub for the one-foot-tall rover, Sagan Memorial Station can be seen in this photograph from Mars.

Check out this image for a glimpse of the little Sojourner at work.

Thanks to NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day.

On Canadian Television

When Carl Sagan Died

I'm writing to share with you one of the most wonderful songs I've ever heard. The subject of the song is Carl Sagan and it's entitled, When Carl Sagan Died.

It is written and performed by an amazing guy named Greg Tamblyn. I first heard him sing this in church one day and went and bought all his CDs.

This song is so touching. It deals with his memories of Carl Sagan and the ending is the ultimate in compassion.

Geoff, Illinois

Listen to the song in the Sounds of Sagan, located in the sidebar.

You can purchase the CD here.

oh Carson.

Don Davis

Don Davis, space painter, has some recollections on his site about his relationship with Carl Sagan, and how Carl had "a pivotal effect on the vitality and development of space art through the Cosmos experience." It's definitely worth reading. There's also a lot of great photos on the page, like the one on the left, which I haven't seen anywhere else. Here is a brief excerpt enticing you to follow the link:

I first met Carl in the summer of 1972, through the efforts of Paul Fox, who worked at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory where I hung out with people I knew there. I visited a commune known as 'The Land' atop the hills overlooking the Stanford campus, and brought with me a new painting of Mars and Phobos based on mariner 9 data. I partied and talked, then made my way to the end of one of the rooms where I saw Carl peering very closely at that painting. A short time later, we were introduced, and he complimented me on my work. He was editor of Icarus at that time, and when I reminded him of the Lunar evolution paintings recently appearing in a paper by Don Wilhelms, my supervisor at the U.S. Geological Survey, Carl related how he worked especially hard to reproduce them as well as he could. I remember asking him if he ever wanted to write science fiction, and he said that some of his colleagues thought that was what he was doing now! He gave a slide show filled with gorgeous imagery, of which he always had the highest quality examples.

Here's the link again.

The Drake Equation

N = R_* f_p n_e f_l f_i f_c L
Where,
N = The number of civilizations in The Milky Way Galaxy whose radio emissions are detectable.
R_* = The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.
f_p = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.
n_e = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.
f_l = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.
f_i = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.
f_c = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

From SETI's Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe - try out their Drake Equation Calculator.


There are a lot of moments in Cosmos that widened my perspective when I first watched the series. Episode 12, Encyclopedia Galactica, is filled with such moments. In the clip below, just before he launches into his vision of the Encyclopedia Galactica, Sagan addresses the probability of intelligent life in the galaxy using the Drake Equation.

Even for a person with a rudimentary understanding of mathematics like myself, the Drake Equation is a simple way to explore the potential for life in the vast Milky Way, which is always a good time. In the clip, Sagan walks us through the equation, demonstrating just how hard it is to know whether we are alone and unique in the universe, or just pedestrian intelligent life. It ends with a humbling thought:

So if civilizations do not always destroy themselves shortly after discovering radio astronomy, then the sky may be softly humming with messages from the stars, with signals from civilizations enormously older and wiser than we.

He goes on from there to succinctly summarize the central plot of Contact, and leaves us reflecting on the great value of radioastronomy and it's potential to aspire us to take to the stars:

If there are millions of technical civilizations in the milky way, each capable of radio astronomy, how far away is the nearest one? If they're distributed more or less randomly through space, then the nearest one will be some two-hundred light-years away, but within two-hundred light years, there are hundreds of thousands of stars. To find the needle in this haystack requires a dedicated and systematic search.

There are many cosmic radio sources having nothing to do with intelligent life, so how would we know that we were receiving a message? The transmitting civilization could make it very easy for us if they wished. Imagine we're in the course of a systematic search, or in the midst of some more conventional radio observations, and suppose one day we find a strong signal slowly emerging. Not just some background hiss, but a methodical series of pulses. The numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13. A signal made of prime numbers; numbers divisible only by one and themselves. There is no natural astrophysical process that generates prime numbers. We would have to conclude that someone fond of elementary mathematics was saying, "Hello." This would be no more than a beacon to attract our attention. The main message would be subtler, more hidden, far richer. We may have to work hard to find it.

But the beacon's signal alone would be profoundly significant. It would mean that someone had learned to survive technological adolescence, that self-destruction is not inevitable, that we also may have a future. Such knowledge, it seems to me, might be worth a great price."

If that doesn't open up your mind, well, you must have it closed pretty tightly.

Patents.

Thanks to Google's new Patent Search, I was able to uncover an original Carl Sagan invention.

Along with Akiva Bar-Nun and Simon Bauer, Sagan filed the Pressure Wave Synthesis of Aminocarboxylic Acids for a patent on October 2, 1970.


How does it work?

A homogenous vapor phase method for preparing aminocarboxylic acids by subjecting a gaseous mixture of compounds containing the elements of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen (with the latter two in reduced compounds), which are optionally mixed in an inert carrier gas to pressure wave heating and rapid expansion wave cooling. The products from the heating and cooling process are immediately withdrawn from the reaction chamber into a dilute aqueous solution of a mineral acid wherein the aminocarboxylic acids produced from the process are recovered.

The patent was awarded on March 28, 1972.


While this is the only Sagan patent I found in Google's records, the search giant did show that he had influence in getting other inventions patented.

You may remember these from Cosmos:

Hypercube model
Polyhedral model

A Year Science

In annual tradition, the Editors at Scientific American publish an article at the end of each year summarizing that year's scientific developments.

'The Year in Science' published on December 20, 1997 starts off with the death of Carl Sagan but quickly moves to focus on his impact on science.

To quote:

The year 1997 began on a somber note, just days after the death of astronomer Carl Sagan. In many ways, though, the year's events went on to celebrate Sagan's life. There were steady advancements in a variety of disciplines. But perhaps the most stellar happenings of the year took place in Sagan's own specialties, namely astronomy, cosmology and space science.

As if in tribute to Sagan, Comet Hale-Bopp blazed across the early summer skies, its fiery tail observed by the most sophisticated observatories and millions of amateurs--armed with telescopes, binoculars or the naked eye. 1997 also marked the 40th anniversary of the Space Age, which began officially when a startled world awakened to beeping signals from the Soviet Union's Sputnik I on October 4, 1957. In the years that followed, Sagan was a pivotal in the conception and planning of unmanned space probes, many of which are still returning important data.

Two spacecraft inspired by Sagan, Voyager I and Voyager II, which were launched August 20 and September 5, 1977, arrived at halfway points in their 40 year missions. Both reached the very fringes of the solar system in 1997, and headed into interstellar space. In their first decade, these vessels returned important images and data from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Since 1989, both have patroled the outer solar system. And in February 1998, Voyager 1 will pass the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, making it the most distant human-made object in the universe.

All of these spacecraft are equipped should they chance upon intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos. Pioneer 10 carries Sagan's famous plaque, which bears human greetings. And both Voyagers contain a gold record describing the location of Earth and human civilization. (Perhaps DVD compact discs, which only came to market last year, would now be more appropriate.)

To read more about Sagan's impact on sciene in '97, check out the Scientific American article.