Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer and science popularizer. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He is world-famous for his popular science books and the television series ', which he co-wrote and presented. In his works, he frequently advocated the scientific method.

Popularization of science

Sagan's capability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos. He delivered the 1977/1978 Christmas Lectures for Young People at the Royal Institution. He wrote (with Ann Druyan, eventually his third wife) and narrated the highly popular thirteen part PBS television series ' (modeled on Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man); he also wrote books to popularize science, such as Cosmos, which reflected and expanded upon some of the themes of A Personal Voyage, ', which won a Pulitzer Prize, and Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. Sagan also wrote the best-selling science fiction novel Contact, but never lived to see the book's 1997 motion picture adaptation, which starred Jodie Foster and won the 1998 Hugo Award.

Related Topics:
1977 - 1978 - Christmas Lectures for Young People - Royal Institution - Ann Druyan - PBS - Jacob Bronowski - The Ascent of Man - Pulitzer Prize - Science fiction - Contact - 1997 - Motion picture adaptation - Jodie Foster - 1998 - Hugo Award

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From Cosmos and his frequent appearances on The Tonight Show, Sagan became associated with the catch phrase, "billions and billions." (He never actually used that phrase in Cosmos, but his distinctive delivery and frequent use of billions made this a favorite phrase of Johnny Carson and others, doing the many affectionate impressions of him. Sagan took this in good humor, and his final book was entitled Billions and Billions - see below.) The humorous unit of the Sagan has now been coined to stand for any count of at least 4,000,000,000.

Related Topics:
The Tonight Show - Catch phrase - Johnny Carson - Sagan

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He wrote a sequel to Cosmos, ', which was selected as a notable book of 1995 by The New York Times. Carl Sagan also wrote an introduction for the bestselling book by Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time.

Related Topics:
1995 - The New York Times - Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time

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Sagan presents a speculation concerning the origin of the swastika symbol in his book, Comet. Sagan hypothesized that a comet approached so close to Earth in antiquity that the jets of gas streaming out of it were visible, bent by the comet's rotation. The book Comet reproduces an ancient Chinese manuscript that shows comet tail varieties; most are variations on simple comet tails, but the last shows the comet nucleus with four bent arms extending from it, showing a swastika.

Related Topics:
Swastika - Comet - Chinese

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Sagan caused mixed reactions among other professional scientists. On the one hand, there was general support for his popularization of science, his efforts to increase scientific understanding among the general public, and his positions in favor of skepticism and against pseudoscience; most notably his debunking of the book Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky. On the other hand, there was some unease that the public would misunderstand some of the personal positions and interests that Sagan took as being part of the scientific consensus, rather than his own personal views, and there was some unease, which some believe to have been motivated in part by professional jealousy, that scientific views contrary to those that Sagan took (such as on the severity of nuclear winter) were not being sufficiently presented to the public.

Related Topics:
Skepticism - Pseudoscience - Worlds In Collision - Immanuel Velikovsky - Nuclear winter

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Sagan's arguments against Velikovsky's catastrophism have been criticized by some of his colleagues. Dr. Robert Jastrow of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies wrote: "Professor Sagan's calculations, in effect, ignore the law of gravity. Here, Dr. Velikovsky was the better astronomer." His comments on the Kuwait oil well fires during the first Gulf War were shown later to be in error; Sagan himself acknowledged his error in print.

Related Topics:
Robert Jastrow - Kuwait oil well fires

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Late in his life, Sagan's books developed his skeptical, naturalistic view of the world. In ', he presented tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent ones, essentially advocating wide use of the scientific method. The compilation, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the End of the Millennium, published after Sagan's death, contains essays written by Sagan, such as his views on abortion, and Ann Druyan's account of his death as a non-believer.

Related Topics:
Scientific method - Abortion

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