All Entries Tagged With: "excerpt"

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.

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"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.

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Halfway There

Zeno wrote to Celebrating Sagan in order to share a personal experience he had with Carl.

To quote:

The conference was great. It had been sponsored by CSICOP (the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) and its title theme was “Controversies in Science and Fringe Science.” Sagan spoke in his usual engaging and enlightening manner, suggesting that skepticism had an important role to play in evaluating the words and policies of our political leaders, as well as judging controversies in science. (Oh, Carl, if you could see how things are today!) James Randi gave a presentation at lunch. Penn & Teller had provided the after-dinner entertainment on the second (and final) evening. A good time was had by all.

I was staying at the Pasadena Hilton, which was within easy walking distance of the convention center where the CSICOP meeting had been held. Ending the conference with the perfect tired but happy cliché, I caught the elevator to head up to my room. The elevator doors opened, and there was Carl Sagan.

He was in his trademark turtleneck and blazer, looking calm and relaxed. Next to him stood a young boy who looked like Carl’s clone, complete with matching turtleneck. I assumed it was his son.

I gave a small, nonchalant smile (at least, I think that’s what I did) and stood to one side in the elevator car as it rose in its shaft. Although I was pleased that I was not acting goofy and gushy (at least, I didn’t think I was acting goofy and gushy), it wasn’t like I was going to get many more opportunities to spend time in the company of Carl Sagan. I made up my mind to seize the day. Or the moment, at least.

“Dr. Sagan, it was a pleasure to attend the conference and hear your speech. I came down from Sacramento for it. I told my boss you were going to be the keynote speaker, and you might be amused to learn that she said, ‘Who is Carl Sagan?’”

I don’t know if Carl was actually amused, but the boy appeared to be on the point of convulsing with laughter. Carl’s expression, in fact, was nearly as blank as Laura’s had been. He considered my remark for a long moment, and then gave a small smile. In his roundest oratorical tones, Sagan said, “Please give my best to your boss.”

I have no idea what I said in return. I hope it was something cool like “I will indeed” or “It will be my pleasure,” but I don’t remember. The elevator stopped at my floor and I got off. I presume I gave a polite and dignified nod as I stepped off. I’m fairly certain I would have remembered if my exit line had been, “Oh, golly gee, Dr. Sagan, you bet. I will for sure. Gosh. Thanks! Good night.” And somewhere halfway through all that the elevator doors would have closed between us and I’d be babbling at a blank wall. Pretty sure that didn’t happen.

To read the whole account please visit Halfway There.

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On Faith.

When discussing Sagan it is easy to fall into the groove carved by his atheism. Many people point to him as the like-able friendly face of the belief that god does not exist.

Unlike modern atheists — Dawkins, Harris, and Dennet (for a brief example please look to Wired magazine) — Sagan’s skepticism about the existence of god did not leave him with ill feelings for religion. He believed that religion could be graceful and was once useful, but he was frustrated when religion put superstition before rational thought.

In his only fictional work, Contact, the action in the novel hangs on two beliefs. The first is that it is possible to teach science, skepticism, and rational thought through fiction. Second is the idea that, as human organizations both religion and science are flawed. Sagan saw that there is an unexplored space between faith and rational thought. As I read it Contact is an exercise in coming to terms with that gap.

The best example is the novel / movie in its entirety. However, since I don’t have the ability to post the entire film, this excerpt gets to the point — here we see rational thought break down and faith step in.

To hear Dr. Sagan speak briefly on religion, listen to the Peter Gzowski interview with Sagan, found in the Sounds of Sagan on the sidebar.

As a side I would also like to point out that the people who have contributed to Celebrating Sagan hold different takes on god and religion. I believe that it is a testament to Sagan’s vision that people who have oppositional beliefs can come together underneath the umbrage of his world view.

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SIRTF

Living as I do with a computer always seeming at an arm’s distance, it is no wonder that I find myself peering into the depths of the Internet, and it is also no wonder that I am constantly amazed by the diversity found within the pools of common interest that collect.

This project-in-Sagan has provided an incredible opportunity to dip my hand into this particular pool and by turning over the different stones found therein I continue to be gleefully pleased by the variety of peoples that Doctor Carl Sagan has touched.

Students, teachers, pilots, musicians, artists, fathers, mothers, and the list goes on and fractal-ly combines and grows.

Just now I came across a profile Dr. William Reach that is accessible through NASA’s page for the Spitzer Space Telescope.

In it Dr. Reach writes:

I’ve always wanted to be an astronomer. Thinking about what “always” means, I do have a clear memory, which may be partially mixed up with Carl Sagan’s memories described in his fabulous Cosmos book and TV show, of looking at the stars and wanting to know what they were when I was little. The only real “evidence” of this early desire is a signal event when my grandfather took me to the planetarium when I was 5 years old and living in New York. They showed stars and galaxies with different shapes and colors, but also some sensationalistic UFO stuff. The best part was when they did an experiment of hurling a shiny hubcap into the sky. The photograph of that hubcap looked just like some of the UFO pictures, and a sceptic was born. Ever since then, I preferred the natural over the supernatural.

Similar to all heroes, Dr. Sagan’s influence isn’t always direct. Sure Sagan’s passion and clarity moved people to become scientists and think skeptically about the world around them, but the influence of people like Sagan can also be more graceful, re-enforcing the desire from within that strives to understand the world around us.

When Celebrating Sagan it is also important to remember the science teachers, grandfathers, and free thinkers that we all know, who helped us to grow as people, and set the stage for our desire to learn evermore.

Click on the image to learn more about Dr. Reach.

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Looking a Little Glum

I was flipping through the channels on Dish Network, and found to my surprise that there were apparently some new channels. One, called The Science Channel, I decided to take a peep at. It was late at night, and I see this dude, pimped out in a turtleneck and coat, and featuring a classic late 70s haircut, to say nothing of those remarkable eye-brows.

I was fascinated. His voice, vocabulary, and delivery – they entranced me. Then, here he is, talking about “Comet Halley” and the like, when he starts leveling all of these unsolicited moral judgments. I was taken aback, and thought about crazy little science videos they used to make us watch in elementary school.

So here he is, talking innocuously about the history of man’s knowledge of the planet Venus. Throughout the show, he seemed to revel, not in the facts, but in past and future errors – he took a kind of delight, gave a kind of wry smile each time he was able to indulge a little prickishness into the learning.

I love how he anachronistically mocks ancient science.

I found out only later that this is Carl Sagan. He’s a gem.

Excerpted from kittenry‘s flickr page.

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Dawkins on Sagan

This tribute appeared alongside others in the March/April 1997 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, whose current issue features a picture of Dr. Sagan on the cover.

In my review for The Times of London, of The Demon-Haunted World, I mentioned a chapter heading of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: “Who Speaks for Earth?”. I went on that it was “a rhetorical question that expects no particular answer, but I presume to give it one. 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.” In the Financial Times this year, I described him as “a beacon of clear light in a dark world of alien abductions and ‘real-life X-files’, of psychic charlatans and New Age airheads, of fatcat astrologers giggling all the way to the millennium.” 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.

- Richard Dawkins

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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.

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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.

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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.

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