Carl Sagan
1934-1996
|
"The
books of Carl Sagan, the distinguished astronomer, are the most
widely read scientific works in the world. Cosmos, first
published in 1980, is the best-selling science book ever published
in the English language. The accompanying Peabody and Emmy
Award-winning television series was broadcast in sixty
countries. His other books include The Dragons of Eden,
awarded the Pulitzer Price in 1978, Broca's Brain, and the
bestseller Comet.
Dr. Sagan was deeply involved in both
spacecraft and exploration of the plants and radio search for
extraterrestrial intelligence. His numerous awards include
the NASA Medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and for
Distinguished Public Service.
Dr. Sagan was the Professor of Astronomy and Space
Sciences at Cornell University, where he also served as director
of Laboratory for Planetary Studies at the Center for Radiophysics
and Space Research. He died in 1996 after consulting briefly
on the movie Contact. He never lived to see its debut and
critical acclaim, however, hundreds of tributes worldwide were
erected to honor his significant tributes."
- Pocket Books |
|
"We
succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you
look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On
it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived,
lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and
sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and
economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and
coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king
and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child,
every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every
teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar,
every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our
species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast
cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those
generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could
become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the
endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the
dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner
of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they
are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings,
our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some
privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point
of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great
enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness
-- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us
from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a
humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my
mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of
human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me,
it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and
compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that
pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
- Carl Sagan |
Links/Tributes:
|