Science Personified : Carl Sagan
An ode to Carl Sagan, the man who reached the stars and unfolded the COSMOS bringing in
Scientific Culture…
We live in a time dominated by science and technology and yet it sometimes seems that almost no one understands very much about science and technology….
These are the words of Carl Sagan – the most charismatic apostle of popular science who brought the marvels of the universe and the mysteries of creation to a worldwide audience of hundreds of millions in his famous Television Series ‘Cosmos’. The Thirteen Part Cosmos serial was first telecast on the television on September 28, 1980. The man who literally reached to the stars and unfolded COSMOS, inflicting Scientific Culture…In recognition, September 28 is celebrated world over as ‘Scientific Culture Day’.
The Making of Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan, born in Brooklyn, New York, USA on November 9, 1934 to an American mother and a Russian immigrant father was quite destined to be an astronomer… When Carl was just 12 years old, his grandfather asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. "An astronomer," replied the boy without hesitating. A science fiction addict from his childhood, Sagan was fascinated by astronomy and he translated the dream to the reality…He was a multifaceted persona…an astronomer, astrophysicist and the director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University.
Sagan was more popularly known as a gifted and enthusiastic storyteller and showman who described cosmic phenomena with the sense of awe and wonderment. He was science personified…
Sagan – The Science Communicator
Carl Sagan is regarded as the best public figure in science communication. For Carl Sagan, interest in science communication came early. He was frequently interviewed by the press and became a public spokesperson for astronomy on a number of Television programs. His science was publicly minded and engaged. Alongside his work as a researcher, he was engaged as an educator, public communicator and activist. The television series Cosmos is the epitome of his legacy… He strongly believed that it is important for scientists to be involved in communicating science to the public. The 13-part television series Cosmos was viewed by over 500 million viewers all over the world. Cosmos covered the 15billion-year history of the universe, from the creation to the present.
Sagan – The Writer
Carl Sagan was a prolific writer. He wrote a series of essays in magazines. His essays like ‘The Gift of the Apollo’ passionately made the case to the American public for the value of space exploration. He has authored a number of books, the prominent amongst them are like ‘Pale Blue Dot’: A Vision of the Human Future in Space and ‘Demon Haunted World’: Science as a Candle in the Dark and his novel ‘Contact’ he worked to communicate the importance and values of science to the world at large. He also wrote ‘The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, which won a Pulitzer Prize for literature and Brocas Brain; a popular book in which he traced the evolution of the human brain. His book, Demon Haunted World; a critique against pseudoscience is also amongst most read books.
Sagan – The Researcher
Throughout his career, Carl Sagan was engaged in basic scientific research of Solar System. He was very active in the search for extra-terrestrial life and extra-terrestrial Intelligence and worked extensively in the science of exobiology, the study of extra-terrestrial life. He was interested and was an ardent believer in the existence of intelligent civilizations in the COSMOS and in the possibility of Life beyond Earth. He estimated that there may be as many as 1 million advanced civilizations in our galaxy alone.
Sagan was adviser on the Mariner, Voyager and Viking unmanned space missions for NASA. He has worked out the Scientific Objectives of the Voyager Mission. He designed the famous plaque on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft depicting the man and women raising their palm as a message of peace for the far-off intelligent civilization in the sky in case the spacecraft comes in contact with extra-terrestrial life. Pioneer-10 was the first man-made object to travel beyond our Solar System.
Sagan – The Champion Activist
Carl Sagan was a noted Professor who taught a range of courses at Stanford, Harvard and Cornell Universities. Besides instruction for students and scientists, Sagan was also passionate about teaching non-science majors about the importance of scepticism and scientific habits of mind on critical thinking in science and non-science contexts at Cornell University. Sagan made direct appeals to the public on the importance of understanding and supporting science and the threats of nuclear proliferation. Those pronouncements made Sagan a champion of organizations advocating a ban on nuclear testing and a halt to development of nuclear weapons.
‘The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be’ tells Sagan in the opening narration of Cosmos and in the final episode covers the 15 billion years from the big bang of creation to the present, using a calendar year as a point of reference. In this scenario Sagan tells if January 1 is the Big Bang day and the Universe is created, on this scale Dinosaurs would appear on this earth only by Christmas eve and the written record of human civilizations occupies only the final 10 Seconds of the last day of the year which is to the present….
Dr Siddhivinayak Barve
Ediator, ScienceNow Digital
