Astronomer Carl Sagan, referred to as “America’s most effective salesman of science” by Time journal, spent a lot of his profession translating technical scientific explanations into one thing simply digestible by most people. As a pure instructor, Sagan educated individuals not solely by way of classroom lectures but in addition by way of interviews and tv reveals. His 13-part TV collection, “Cosmos,” has been seen by over 600 million individuals in additional than 60 international locations. The present was so common that it returned to television in 2005. [See also our overview of Famous Astronomers and great scientists from many fields who have worked in astronomy.]
Carl Edward Sagan was born on Nov. 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended school on the University of Chicago, the place he earned his Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960, on the age of 26.
After finishing postdoctoral work, he taught at Harvard University. When that college declined to grant Sagan tenure standing in 1968, he took a place with Cornell University in New York, serving because the director for the Laboratory for Planetary Studies and the affiliate director of the Center for Radio Physics and Space Research.
Diagnosed with the uncommon bone-marrow illness myelodysplasia, Sagan underwent three bone-marrow transplants over the course of his life. Due to problems from the illness, he contracted pneumonia, which led to his death
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Making Science Interesting Although Sagan was most generally recognized for his scientific communication with most people, he made many important scientific contributions as properly.
When Sagan was in graduate faculty, many scientists thought the planet Venus was just like Earth . As a part of his doctorate analysis, Sagan computed the primary greenhouse mannequin for Venus’ ambiance, which revealed a better temperature than beforehand suspected. Later, he steered that dust storms on Mars triggered the seasonal adjustments noticed on that planet, and he additionally wrote a collection of papers on the natural chemistry of Jupiter ‘s ambiance.
As an advisor to NASA, Sagan helped design and handle the Mariner 2 mission to Venus, the Mariner 9 and Viking journeys to Mars, the Voyager system to the outer solar system, and the Galileo mission to Jupiter. He additionally helped temporary astronauts previous to their journeys to the moon.
Sagan helped lay the groundwork for 2 new scientific disciplines: planetary science and exobiology, or the research of potential life on different planets. He co-founded and served as the primary president of The Planetary Society , a corporation devoted to inspiring and involving the general public in space exploration. And he promoted the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI ) Institute, the place he served as a trustee.
But Sagan was way more seen as a scientific educator than as a researcher. He was gifted at breaking down scientific ideas into explanations that the general public might readily perceive, whereas avoiding speaking right down to them. He authored lots of of common articles and greater than two dozen books, and he regularly appeared in Time journal — touchdown the duvet on Oct. 20, 1980.
“Carl kept feet firmly planted in both the planetary research community and in the greater worlds of science communication and science policy,” astronomers Yervant Terzian and Virginia Trimble wrote within the American Astronomical Society’s obituary for Sagan
Carl Sagan pictured at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, in 1974 (Image credit score: Photo by Santi Visalli Inc./Getty Images)
Sagan’s Books and TV Episodes In 1977, Sagan started work on the tv collection “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” serving as author and presenter. The first present aired on the Public Broadcasting Service in October of 1980. Between new episodes and reruns, the present was probably the most broadly watched collection on U.S. public tv for almost a decade. The present received an Emmy and a Peabody award and was broadcast world wide. Sagan’s guide of the identical identify (Random House, 2013) stayed on The New York Times best-seller listing for 70 weeks and was the best-selling science guide ever printed within the English language on the time.
In addition to “Cosmos,” Sagan additionally appeared as a visitor on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” 26 instances, calling it “the biggest classroom in history.”
At Sagan’s request, NASA commanded its Voyager 1 spacecraft to show its digital camera on Earth, creating a picture that got here to be referred to as the “Pale Blue Dot ,” one of the well-known pictures of Earth from space ever taken. The picture is so iconic that NASA even launched an up to date model of the “Pale Blue Dot” to have a good time its 30th anniversary solar system and the galaxy , arguing for the need of planetary science and the exploration of Earth’s closest neighbors. This guide, too, was broadly well-received by most people.
An earlier nonfiction guide by Sagan, “The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence,” (Random House, 1977) acquired the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for normal nonfiction.
Although the vast majority of Sagan’s work was nonfiction, he used fiction to current scientific ideas in his 1985 novel “Contact” (Simon & Schuster, 1985). The story revolved round interactions between the human race and a complicated civilization of extraterrestrials SETI astronomer Jill Tarter ).
In 2015, the Los Angeles Times introduced that Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. was working with Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan, on a movie concerning the scientist’s life. The manufacturing firm hasn’t launched any particulars concerning the film because the preliminary announcement.
In Sagan’s New York Times obituary
Hugh Downs (left) interviewing Carl Sagan on the ABC television collection ’20/20′ (Image credit score: Photo by Disney General Entertainment Content through Getty Images)
Notable Carl Sagan quotes and excerpts from his books:
Carl Sagan Quotes and Book Excerpts “Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.”
“The significance of a finding that there are other beings who share this universe with us would be absolutely phenomenal. It would be an epochal event in human history.”CNN obituary , December 20, 1996
“At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes — an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”
“Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.”Psychology Today (January 1996)
“For myself, I like a universe that includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence.”
“In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that in some fields — mathematics, physics, some others — the great discoveries are almost entirely made by youngsters.”Psychology Today (January 1996).
“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”
“It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power; we are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible and which are not.”
“It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.”
“Our passion for learning … is our tool for survival.”
“The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.”
“The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
“If the dinosaurs had had a space program, they would not be extinct.”NASA Administrator Michael Griffin in a NASA press launch
“The job is by no means done. We will look for the boundary between the solar system and the interstellar medium, and then we’ll voyage on forever in the dark between the stars.”
— Quoted in CNN obituary , December 20, 1996
Further Reading
