All Entries in the "Memories" Category
A Link to ‘More Carl’ on the Web!
Just an addendum to my post on this superb tribute message board. Many, many thanks, you’re all doing him the justice he so deserves. It shows he is still very much alive.
I have my own website, about 70s and 80s UK radio (160,000 hits last year), used at times by a resource and meeting place for UK listeners and presenters.
It’s rapidly becoming a Carl Sagan tribute!
Because of his video clips our 3GB monthly bandwidth is exceeded until January 1!!!!!!!! (We’ve had to purchase more!)
Here is the link:
http://northeastradio.co.uk/North_East_Radio_Revisited_Miscellaneous_Links_Page.html
All the best – let’s all keep in touch and the blog going. Let’s look after all us like minds ad be ambassadors together for Carl and science on this Pale Blue Dot.
Andy Fleming
Co Durham
UK
Popularity: 2% [?]
‘Vision.’ – A Tribute to Carl Sagan
Lang Kasranov writes:
Thank you for a wonderful site.
I would be honored if you would watch, and possibly include, my recent video about Dr. Sagan. It is hosted at YouTube and Google video.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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
Popularity: 3% [?]
Missing (from China)
We received the following on December 24th, 2006:
Dear Mrs Sagan：
I am from China, the country which has the largest population. Please excuse me for writing to you first.
I know today is the 10th anniversary for Mr Sagan, so I’d rather like to express my regards and sadness to him – the great scientist by this E-mail. I’m so captivated and interested in his loving science and the strive perseveringly for it. Especially the “The Demon-Haunted World” is what I like most, it influenced on me strongly; it is exciting! Sagan is the idol in my heart all life. In the special day, except for giving my respect to you — dear Mrs Sagan, missing the idol, too. Thank you for the construction of science for long long time!
Sorry , my English is poor .If any thing wrong has in this letter or offend you , please don’t care and forgive me, thanks a lot! Because it is my first time to write E-mail in English.
Bai lee
Dalian
China
December 20 2006
Popularity: 1% [?]
What Sagan Taught (Me).
Of course my garage is also invisible and intangible.
Ten years ago today I was near the end of my first semester as a high school student. A few days later, I would read a letter to the editor of a local newspaper about an obituary. Apparently, the author of the letter was annoyed that obituary praised the man for his contributions to science but mentioned nothing of his atheism. The man who had died was Carl Sagan.
At the time, I had only known him from reruns of Johnny Carson’s impersonation. “Definitely. They’ll need much more hair spray than we originally expected.” Later on, I would learn he was the guy who wrote that “Jodie Foster movie about aliens”. That’s all I would know about him for next nine or so years. A Carson sketch and a sci-fi movie. I wasn’t until this February I picked up Demon Haunted World and read his own words.
How different would my life be now if I had read it ten years ago? Would I have understood it? Would I have liked what he had to say? Where would I be if his message had reached me ten years ago?
With a lot of media, audience is often self-selecting. I didn’t start reading DHW until I was already headed towards scientific skepticism. Ten years ago, I was still arguably a Catholic, though my family was no longer attending church. Five years ago, I was working at a supermarket while experimenting with new age stuff and Taoism. Two years ago, I was a disgruntled web programmer who felt helpless in trying to affect my life. A year ago, I had realized that Sagan was more than a Carson sketch, but I still hadn’t read anything by him. I won’t say that the nine years between his death and my first lesson from him were wasted. It may be that I needed to live all those experiences before I could understand what he was saying. I will say that I am glad that I read DHW.
Sagan’s lesson for me was not so much how to be skeptical or why one should be skeptical. These things I knew something about. So what did I actually gain from reading his work? A deeper understand of what it means to be a skeptic. We are not here to contradict, to nay-say, to coerce or to censor. We are here to patiently and carefully seek out eternally elusive truths. We use what we learn to seek further and to help others. It is our demand for evidence before ascent acts as bulwark against false accusations, frauds and authoritarianism. Ubi dubium ibi libertas. Where there is doubt, there is freedom.
With that lesson learned, I will do what I can so that Sagan’s “candle in the dark” will not be extinguished.
Thank you for your time, Jokermage
Popularity: 2% [?]
Celebrando a Carl Sagan
de este astrofisico divulgador que tantas vocaciones, ilusiones y
“Mi memoria es magnífica para olvidar”
Jose, Celebrando a Carl Sagan
Popularity: 3% [?]
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
Popularity: 4% [?]
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
Popularity: 3% [?]
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.
Popularity: 5% [?]
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
Popularity: 8% [?]
